A series of unfortunate events (Sonic style)
by teharrisonfox
Summary: Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge had a perfect life, untill their parents died in a fire, and then their entire life comes with more and more unfortunate events, while escaping Count Eggman, living with gardian after gardian, learining more about their parents' past, and VFD. Very OOC
1. Character list

Violet : Tails (he is still a boy)

Klaus: Amy (she is still a girl)

Sunny: Sonic (he is still a boy)

Mr Poe: Silver

Count Olaf: Eggman (in this AU he is a hedgehog) (in the bad beggining he will try to marry Amy)

The hooked handed man: Frenrald (OC, Fox)

Bald man with the long nose: Ash

The Person Who Looks Like Neither a Man Nor a Woman: Fang

The white faced women: Bunnie and Marine (they become good in book 10, if you dont know)

Bad Beggining

Justice Strauss : Tikal

Reptile Room

Dr. Montgomery Montgomery : Knuckles

Wide Window

Aunt Josephine : Sticks

Miserable Mill

Sir: Antonie

Charles : Big

Phil: Espio

Dr. Orwell: Rouge

Austere Acadamy

Carmelita Spats: Sally

Duncan Quadmire: Manic

Isadora Quadmire: Sonia

Mr. Remora: Bean

Mrs. Bass: Mina

Vice Princable Nero: Roter

Ersatz Elevator

Esme : Eurodra (OC) (Hedgehog)

Jerome Squaler: Vector

Vile Village

Jacques Snicket: Chocolate (OC (Rabbit))

Hector: Jet

Hostile Hospital

Hal : Khan

Carnivorous Carnival

Hugo: Scourge

Collete: Rosy

Kevin: Miles

Madam Lulu: Blaze

Slippery Slope

Quigley Quadmire: Shadow

Uncle Bruce: Max. A (this is an AU)

Grim Grotto

Fiona: Fiona Fox (FYI In that story insted of Klaus (Amy) falling in love with her, I will change it to Violet (Tails) for it to make sence)

Captain Widdershins: Charmy (he is older in this)

Kit Snicket: Vannila

Pemultimate Peril

Dewy, Frank, Ernst: OC's same name (all foxes)

The End

Friday: Cosmo

Ishmael: Mighty

Beatrace: Cream


	2. Bad Beginning

To Cream,

Dearest, darling,

dead.

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Hedge youngsters. Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge were intelligent children, and they were charming and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.

Their misfortune began one day at Briny Beach. The three Hedge children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley—the word "rickety," you may probably know, here means "unsteady" or "likely to collapse"—alone to the seashore, where they would spend the day as a sort of vacation as long as they were home for dinner. This particular morning it was gray and cloudy, which didn't bother the Hedge youngsters one bit. When it was hot and sunny, Briny Beach was crowded with tourists and it was impossible to find a good place to lay one's blanket. On gray and cloudy days, the Hedge's had the beach to themselves to do what they liked.

Miles 'Tails' Hedge, the eldest (adaupted), a yellow two tailed fox, loved to invent and to skip rocks. He was a minority of some fourteen-year-olds, he was left-handed and wore glasses, so the rocks skipped farther across the murky water when Tails used his left hand than when he used his right. As he skipped rocks, he was looking out at the horizon and thinking about an invention he wanted to build. Anyone who knew Tails well could tell he was thinking hard, because his bangs were tied in a ribbion, and his tails were alert. Tails had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so his brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and he never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as his bangs. This morning he was thinking about how to construct a device that could retrieve a rock after you had skipped it into the ocean.

Amy Hedge, the middle child, a pink hedgehog, and the only girl, right handed, liked to examine creatures in tidepools. Amy was a little older than twelve and also wore glasses, which made her look intelligent. She was intelligent. The Hedge parents had an enormous library in their mansion, a room filled with thousands of books on nearly every subject. Being only twelve, Amy of course had not read all of the books in the Hedge library, but she had read a great many of them and had retained a lot of the information from her readings. She knew how to tell an alligator from a crocodile. She knew who killed Julius Caesar. And she knew much about the tiny, slimy animals found at Briny Beach , which she was examining now.

Sonic Hedge, the youngest, a blue hedgehog, liked to bite things, and to run. He was an infant, and very small for his age, scarcely larger than a boot. What he lacked in size, however, he made up for with the size and sharpness of his four teeth, and he didn't look like it, but he was very fast, which was very rare for people his age. Sonic was at an age where one mostly speaks in a series of unintelligible shrieks. Except when he used the few actual words in his vocabulary, like "bottle," "mommy," "run," "sport,"and "bite," most people had trouble understanding what it was that Sonic was saying. For instance, this morning he was saying "Gack!" over and over, which probably meant, "Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog!"

Sure enough, in the distance along the misty shore of Briny Beach there could be seen a tall figure striding toward the Hedge children. Sonic had already been staring and shrieking at the figure for some time when Amy looked up from the spiny crab she was examining, and saw it too. She reached over and touched Tails' arm, bringing him out of his inventing thoughts.

"Look at that," Amy said, and pointed toward the figure. It was drawing closer, and the children could see a few details. It was about the size of an adult hedgehog, with 2 spikes at the end of his head that were curly or round.

"What do you think it is?" Tails asked.

"I don't know," Amy said, squinting at it, "but it seems to be moving right toward us."

"We're alone on the beach," Tails said, a little nervously. "There's nobody else it could be moving toward." He felt the slender, smooth stone in his right hand, which he had been about to try to skip as far as he could. He had a sudden thought to throw it at the figure, because it seemed so frightening.

"It only seems scary," Amy said, as if reading her brother's thoughts, "because of all the mist."

This was true. As the figure reached them, the children saw with relief that it was not anybody frightening at all, but somebody they knew: Mr. Silver Poe. Mr. Silver Poe, is a white hedgehog, and he was a good friend of Mr. and Mrs. Hedge's whom the children had met many times at dinner parties. One of the things Tails, Amy and Sonic really liked about their parents was that they didn't send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table. The children remembered Mr. Silver Poe because he always had a cold and was constantly excusing himself from the table to have a fit of coughing in the next room.

Mr. Silver Poe took off his top hat, which had made his head look large and round in the fog, and stood for a moment, coughing loudly into a white handkerchief. Tails and Amy moved forward to shake his hand and say how do you do.

"How do you do?" said Tails.

"How do you do?" said Amy.

"Odo yow!" said Sonic.

"Fine, thank you," said Mr. Silver Poe, but he looked very sad. For a few seconds nobody said anything, and the children wondered what Mr. Silver Poe was doing there at Briny Beach , when he should have been at the bank in the city, where he worked. He was not dressed for the beach.

"It's a nice day," Tails said finally, making conversation. Sonic made a noise that sounded like an angry bird, and Amy picked him up and held him.

"Yes, it is a nice day," Mr. Silver Poe said absently, staring out at the empty beach. "I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you children."

The three Hedge siblings looked at him. Tails', with some embarrassment, felt the stone in his right hand and was glad he had not thrown it at Mr. Silver Poe.

"Your parents," Mr. Silver Poe said, "have perished in a terrible fire."

The children didn't say anything.

"They perished," Mr. Silver Poe said, "in a fire that destroyed the entire house. I'm very, very sorry to tell you this, my dears."

Tails took his eyes off Mr. Silver Poe and stared out at the ocean. Mr. Silver Poe had never called the Hedge children "my dears" before. He understood the words he was saying but thought he must be joking, playing a terrible joke on him and his brother and sister.

"'Perished,'" Mr. Silver Poe said, "means 'killed.'"

"We know what the word 'perished' means," Amy said, crossly. She did know what the word "perished" meant, but he was still having trouble understanding exactly what it was that Mr. Silver Poe had said. It seemed to him that Mr. Silver Poe must somehow have misspoken.

"The fire department arrived, of course," Mr. Silver Poe said, "but they were too late. The entire house was engulfed in fire. It burned to the ground. "

Amy pictured all the books in the library, going up in flames. Now she'd never read all of them.

Mr. Silver Poe coughed several times into his handkerchief before continuing. "I was sent to retrieve you here, and to take you to my home, where you'll stay for some time while we figure things out. I am the executor of your parents' estate. That means I will be handling their enormous fortune and figuring out where you children will go. When Tails comes of age, the fortune will be yours, but the bank will take charge of it until you are old enough."

Although he said he was the executor, Tails felt like Mr. Silver Poe was the executioner. He had simply walked down the beach to them and changed their lives forever.

"Come with me," Mr. Silver Poe said, and held out his hand. In order to take it, Tails had to drop the stone she was holding. Amy took Tails' other hand, and Sonic took Amy's other hand, and in that manner the three Hedge children—the Hedge orphans, now—were led away from the beach and from their previous lives .

Chapter 2:

It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Tails, Amy and even Sonic felt in the time that followed. If you have lost someone very important to you then you already know how it feels, if you havent, you cant possibly imagine it.

For the Hedge children, it was of course especially terrible because they had lost both their parents at the same time, and for several days they felt so miserable they could scarcely get out of bed. Amy found he had little interest in books. The gears in Tails' inventive brain seemed to stop. And even Sonic, who of course was too young to really understand what was going on, bit things, and ran with less enthusiasm.

Of course, it didn't make things any easier that they had lost their home as well, and all their possessions. As I'm sure you know, to be in one's own room, in one's own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better, but the beds of the Hedge orphans had been reduced to charred rubble. Mr. Silver Poe had taken them to the remains of the Hedge mansion to see if anything had been unharmed, and it was terrible: Tails' microscope had fused together in the heat of the fire, Amy's favorite pen had turned to ash, and all of Sonic's teething rings had melted, so was his trainer collection and his mini running mashine that Tails mad. Here and there, the children could see traces of the enormous home they had loved: fragments of their grand piano, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Hedge kept brandy, the scorched cushion of the window seat where their mother liked to sit and read.

Their home destroyed, the Hedge had to recuperate from their terrible loss in the Poe household, which was not at all agreeable. Mr. Silver Poe was scarcely at home, because he was very busy attending to the Hedge affairs, and when he was home he was often coughing so much he could barely have a conversation. Mrs. Poe purchased clothing for the orphans that was in grotesque colors, and itched. And the two Poe children—Edgar and Albert—were loud and obnoxious hedgehogs with whom the Hedge's had to share a tiny room that smelled of some sort of ghastly flower.

But even given the surroundings, the children had mixed feelings when, over a dull dinner of boiled chicken, boiled potatoes and blanched—the word "blanched" here means "boiled"—string beans, Mr. Silver Poe announced that they were to leave his household the next morning.

"Good," said Albert, who had a piece of potato stuck between his teeth. "Now we can get our room back. I'm tired of sharing it. Tails and Amy are always moping around, and are never any fun."

"And the baby bites, and I lost count how many times I ran into him when he was runnining," Edgar said, tossing a chicken bane to the Door as if he were an animal in a zoo and not the son of a well-respected member of the banking community.

"Where will we go?" Tails asked nervously. Mr. Silver Poe opened his mouth to say something, but erupted into a brief fit of coughing. "I have made arrangements," he said finally, "for you to be raised by a distant relative of yours who lives on the other side of town. His name is Count Eggman."

Tails, Amy and Sonic looked at one another, unsure of what to think. On one hand, they didn't want to live with the Poes any longer. On the other hand, they had never heard of Count Eggman and didn't know what he would be like.

"Your parents' will," Mr. Silver Poe said, "instructs that you be raised in the most convenient way possible. Here in the city, you'll be used to your surroundings, and this Count Eggman is the only relative who lives within the urban limits."

Amy thought this over for a minute as she swallowed a chewy bit of bean. "But our parents never mentioned Count Eggman to us. Just how is he related to us, exactly?"

Mr. Silver Poe sighed and looked down at Sonic, who was biting a fork, listening closely, while jogging on the spot (quite slowley).

"He is either a third cousin four times removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed. He is not your closest relative on the family tree, but he is the closest geographically. That's why—"

"If he lives in the city," Tails said, "why didn't our parents ever invite him over?"

"Possibly because he was very busy," Mr. Silver Poe said. "He's an actor by trade, and often travels around the world with various theater companies."

"I thought he was a count," Amy said.

"He is both a count and an actor," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Now, I don't mean to cut short our dinner, but you children have to pack up your things, and I have to return to the bank to do some more work. Like your new legal guardian, I am very busy myself."

The three Hedge children had many more questions for Mr. Silver Poe, but he had already stood up from the table, and with a slight wave of his hand departed from the room, They heard him coughing into his handkerchief and then the front door creaked shut as he left the house.

"Well," Mrs. Poe said, "you three had better start packing. Edgar, Albert, please help me clear the table."

The Hedge orphans went to the bedroom and glumly packed their few belongings. Amy looked distastefully at each ugly shirt Mrs. Poe had bought for her as she folded them and put them into a small suitcase. Tails looked around the cramped, smelly room in which they had been living. And Sonic crawled around solemnly biting each of Edgar and Albert's shoes, leaving small teeth marks in each one so he would not be forgotten. From time to time, the Hedge children looked at one another, but with their future such a mystery they could think of nothing to say. At bedtime, they tossed and turned all night, scarcely getting any sleep between the loud snoring of Edgar and Albert and their own worried thoughts.

Finally, Mr. Silver Poe knocked on the door and stuck his head into the bedroom.

"Rise and shine, Hedges," he said. "It's time for you to go to Count Eggman's."

Tails looked around the crowded bedroom, and even though he didn't like it, he felt very nervous about leaving. "Do we have to go right this minute?" he asked.

Mr. Silver Poe opened his mouth to speak, but had to cough a few times before he began. "Yes you do. I'm dropping you off on my way to the bank, so we need to leave as soon as possible. Please get out of bed and get dressed," he said briskly. The word "briskly" here means "quickly, so as to get the Hedge children to leave the house."

The Hedge children left the house. Mr. Silver Poe's automobile rumbled along the cobblestone streets of the city toward the neighborhood where Count Eggman lived. They passed horse-drawn carriages and motorcycles along Doldrum Drive . They passed the Fickle Fountain, an elaborately carved monument that occasionally spat our water in which young children played. They passed an enormous pile of dirt where the Royal Gardens once stood. Before too long, Mr. Silver Poe drove his car down a narrow alley lined with houses made of pale brick and stopped halfway down the block.

"Here we are," Mr. Silver Poe said, in a voice undoubtedly meant to be cheerful. "Your new home."

The Hedge children looked out and saw the prettiest house on the block. The bricks had been cleaned very well, and through the wide and open windows one could see an assortment of well-groomed plants. Standing in the doorway, with her hand on the shiny brass doorknob, was an older woman, a green echidna, smartly dressed, who was smiling at the children. In one hand she carried a flowerpot.

"Hello there!" she called out. "You must be the children Count Eggman is adopting."

Tails opened the door of the automobile and got out to shake the woman's hand. It felt firm and warm, and for the first time in a long while Tails felt as if his life and the lives of his siblings might turn out well after all. "Yes," he said. "Yes, we are. I am Tails Hedge, and this is my sister Amy and my brother Sonic. And this is Mr. Silver Poe, who has been arranging things for us since the death of our parents."

"Yes, I heard about the accident," the woman said, as everyone said how do you do. "I am

Justice Tikal Strauss."

"That's an unusual first name," Amy remarked. "It is my full name," she explained, "Please call me Justice Stauss, but I don't mind beaing called Justice Tikal Strauss. I serve as a judge on the High Court."

"How fascinating," Tails said. "And are you married to Count Eggman?"

"Goodness me no," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I don't actually know him that well. He is my next-door neighbor."

The children looked from the well-scrubbed house of Justice Tikal Strauss to the dilapidated one next door. The bricks were stained with soar and grime. There were only two small windows, which were closed with the shades drawn even though it was a nice day. Rising above the windows was a tall and dirty tower that tilted slightly to the left. The front door needed to be repainted, and carved in the middle of it was an image of an eye. The entire building sagged to the side, like a crooked tooth.

"Oh!" said Sonic, and everyone knew what he meant. He meant, "What a terrible place! I don't want to live there at all!"

"Well, it was nice to meet you," Tails said to Justice Tikal Strauss.

"Yes," said Justice Tikal Strauss, gesturing to her flowerpot. "Perhaps one day you could come over and help me with my gardening."

"That would be very pleasant," Amy said, very sadly. It would, of course, be very pleasant to help Justice Tikal Strauss with her gardening, but Tikal could not help thinking that it would be far more pleasant to live in Justice Tikal Strauss's house, instead of Count Eggman's.

'What kind of a man,' Amy wondered, 'would carve an image of an eye into his front door?'

Mr. Silver Poe tipped his hat to Justice Tikal Strauss, who smiled at the children and disappeared into her lovely house. Tails stepped forward and knocked on Count Eggmans's door, his knuckles rapping right in the middle of the carved eye. There was a pause, and then the door creaked open and the children saw Count Eggman for the first time.

"Hello hello hello," Count Eggman said in a wheezy whisper. He was a coal black hedgehog, he was very tall and very thin, dressed in a gray suit that had many dark stains on it. His face was unshaven, and rather than two eyebrows, like most people or Mobians have, he had just one long one. His eyes were very, very shiny, which made him look both hungry and angry. "Hello, my children. Please step into your new home, and wipe your feet outside so no mud gets indoors."

As they stepped into the house, Mr. Silver Poe behind them, the Hedge orphans realized what a ridiculous thing Count Eggman had just said. The room in which they found themselves was the dirtiest they had ever seen, and a little bit of mud from outdoors wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Even by the dim light of the one bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, the three children could see that everything in this room was filthy, from the stuffed head of a lion which was nailed to the wall to the bowl of apple cores which sat on a small wooden table.

Tails willed himself not to cry as he looked around.

"This room looks like it needs a little work," Mr. Silver Poe said, peering around in the gloom.

"I realize that my humble home isn't as fancy as the Hedge mansion," Count Eggman said, "but perhaps with a bit of your money we could fix it up a little nicer."

Mr. Silver Poe's eyes widened in surprise, and his coughs echoed in the dark room before he spoke. "The Hedge's fortune," he said sternly, "will not be used for such matters. In fact, it will not be used at all, until Tails or Amy is of age."

Count Eggman turned to Mr. Silver Poe with a glint in his eye like an angry dog. For a moment Amy thought he was going to strike Mr. Silver Poe across the face. But then he swallowed— the children could see his Adam's apple bob in his skinny throat—and shrugged his patchy shoulders.

"All right then," he said. "It's the same to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Silver Poe, for bringing them here. Children, I will now show you to your room."

"Good-bye, Tails, Amy and Sonic," Mr. Silver Poe said, stepping back through the frontdoor.

"I hope you will be very happy here. I will continue to see you occasionally, and you can always contact me at the bank if you have any questions."

"But we don't even know where the bank is," Tails said.

"I have a map of the city," Count Eggman said. "Good-bye, Mr. Silver Poe."

He leaned forward to shut the door, and the Hedge orphans were too overcome with despair to get a last glimpse of Mr. Silver Poe. They now wished they could all stay at the Poe household, even though it smelled. Rather than looking at the door, then, the orphans looked down, and saw that although Count Eggman was wearing shoes, he wasn't wearing any socks.

They could see, in the space of pale skin between his tattered trouser cuff and his black shoe, that Count Eggman had an image of an eye tattooed on his ankle, matching the eye on his front door. They wondered how many other eyes were in Count Eggman's house, and whether, for the rest of their lives, they would always feel as though Count Eggman were watching them even when he wasn't nearby.

Chapter 3:

 _I don't_ know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong. You

can look at a painting for the first time, for example, and not like it at all, but after looking at

it a little longer you may find it very pleasing. The first time you try Gorgonzola cheese you

may find it too strong, but when you are older you may want to eat nothing but Gorgonzola

cheese. Amy, when Sonic was born, did not like him at all, but by the time he was six

weeks old the two of them were thick as thieves. Your initial opinion on just about anything

may change over time.

I wish I could tell you that the Hedge's first impressions of Count Eggman and his house

were incorrect, as first impressions so often are. But these impressions—that Count Eggman is a horrible person, and his house a depressing pigsty—were absolutely correct. During the

first few days after the orphans' arrival at Count Eggman's, Tails, Amy and Sonic attempted to make themselves feel at home, but it was really no use. Even though Count Eggman's house was quite large, the three children were placed together in one filthy bedroom that had only one small bed in it. Tails and Amy took turns sleeping in it, so that every other night one of them was in the bed and the other was sleeping on the hard wooden floor, and the bed's mattress was so lumpy it was difficult to say who was more uncomfortable. To make a bed for Sonic, Tails removed the dusty curtains from the curtain rod that hung over the bedroom's one window and bunched them together to form a sort of cushion, just big enough for his brother.

However, without curtains over the cracked glass, the sun streamed through the window every morning, so the children woke up early and sore each day. Instead of a closet, there was a large cardboard box that had once held a refrigerator and would now hold the three children's clothes, all piled in a heap. Instead of toys, books, or other things to amuse the youngsters, Count Eggman had provided a small pile of rocks. And the only decoration on the peeling walls was a large and ugly painting of an eye, matching the one on Count Eggman's ankle and all over the house.

But the children knew, as I'm sure you know, that the worst surroundings in the world can be tolerated if the people in them are interesting and kind. Count Eggman was neither interesting nor kind; he was demanding, short-tempered, and bad-smelling. The only good thing to be said for Count Eggman is that he wasn't around very often. When the children woke up and choose their clothing out of the refrigerator box, they would walk into the kitchen and find a list of instructions left for them by Count Eggman, who would often not appear until night time.

Most of the day he spent out of the house, or up in the high tower, where the children were forbidden to go. The instructions he left for them were usually difficult chores, such as repainting the back porch or repairing the windows, and instead of a signature Count Eggman would draw an eye at the bottom of the note.

One morning his note read, "My theater troupe will be coming for dinner before tonight's

performance. Have dinner ready for all ten of them by the time they arrive at seven o'clock.

Buy the food, prepare it, ser the table, serve dinner, clean up afterwards, and stay out of our

way." Below that there was the usual eye, and underneath the note was a small sum of money

for the groceries.

Tails and Amy read the note as they ate their breakfast, which was a grey and lumpy oatmeal Count Eggman left for them each morning in a large pot on the stove. Then they looked at each other in dismay.

"None of us knows how to cook," Amy said.

"That's true," Tails said. "I knew how to repair those windows, and how to clean the

chimney, because those sorts of things interest me. But I don't know how to cook anything

except toast."

"And sometimes you burn the toast," Amy said, and they smiled. They were both

remembering a time when the two of them got up early to make a special breakfast for their

parents. Tails had burned the toast, and their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to

see what the matter was. When they saw Tails and Amy, looking forlornly at pieces of

pitch-black toast, they laughed and laughed, and then made pancakes for the whole family.

"I wish they were here," Tails said. He did not have to explain he was talking about

their parents. "They would never let us stay in this dreadful place."

"If they were here," Amy said, her voice rising as she got more and more upset, "we would

not be with Count Eggman in the first place. I hate it here, Tails! I hate this house! I hate our

room! I hate having to do all these chores, and I hate Count Eggman!"

"I hate it too," Tails said, and Amy looked at her older brother with relief.

Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can

make you feel better about a terrible situation. "I hate everything about our lives right now,

Amy," he said, "but we have to keep our chin up." This was an expression the children's

father had used, and it meant "try to stay cheerful."

"You're right," Amy said. "But it is very difficult to keep one's chin up when Count Eggman keeps shoving it down."

"Jook!" Sonic shrieked, banging on the table with his oatmeal spoon. Tails and Amy

were jerked out of their conversation and looked once again at Count Eggman's note.

"Perhaps we could find a cookbook, and read about how to cook," Amy said. "It shouldn't

be that difficult to make a simple meal."

Tails and Amy spent several minutes opening and shutting Count Eggman's kitchen cupboards, but there weren't any cookbooks to be found.

"I can't say I'm surprised," Tails said. "We haven't found any books in this house at all."

"I know," Amy said miserably. "I miss reading very much. We must go out and look for a

library sometime soon."

"But not today," Tails said. "Today we have to cook for ten people."

At that moment there was a knock on the front door. Tails and Amy looked at one

another nervously.

"Who in the world would want to visit Count Eggman?" Tails wondered out loud.

"Maybe somebody wants to visit us," Amy said, without much hope. In the time since the

Hedge parents' death, most of the Hedge orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside,

an expression which here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of

the Hedges, making them very lonely." You and I, of course, would never do this to any

of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved

one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.

Tails, Amy and Sonic walked slowly to the front door and peered through the peephole, which was in the shape of an eye. They were delighted to see Justice Tikal Strauss peering back at them, and opened the door.

"Justice Tikal Strauss!" Amy cried. "How lovely to see you." She was about to add, "Do come in," but then she realized that Justice Tikal Strauss would probably not want to venture into the dim and dirty room.

"Please forgive me for not stopping by sooner," Justice Tikal Strauss said, as the Hedges

stood awkwardly in the doorway. "I wanted to see how you children were settling in, but I

had a very difficult case in the High Court and it was taking up much of my time."

"What sort of case was it?" Amy asked. Having been deprived of reading, she was hungry

for new information.

"I can't really discuss it," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "because it's official business. But I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone's credit card."

"Yeeka!" Sonic shrieked, which appeared to mean "How interesting!" although of course

there is no way that Sonic could understand what was being said.

Justice Tikal Strauss looked down at Sonic and laughed. "Yeeka indeed," she said, and reached down to par the child on the head. Sonic held Justice Tikal Strauss's hand and bit it, gently.

"That means he likes you," Tails explained. "He bites very, very hard if he doesn't like

you, or if you want to give him a bath. Or if you put him very near a large body of water."

"I see," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Now then, how are you children getting on? Is there

anything you desire?"

The children looked at one another, thinking of all the things they desired. Another bed,

for example. A proper crib for Sonic. Curtains for the window in their room. A closet instead

of a cardboard box. But what they desired most of all, of course, was not to be associated

with Count Eggman in any way whatsoever. What they desired most was to be with their parents

again, in their true home, but that, of course, was impossible. Tails, Amy and Sonic all

looked down at the floor unhappily as they considered the question. Finally, Amy spoke.

"Could we perhaps borrow a cookbook?" she said. "Count Eggman has instructed us to make

dinner for his theater troupe tonight, and we can't find a cookbook in the house."

"Goodness," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Cooking dinner for an entire theater troupe seems like a

lot to ask of children."

"Count Eggman gives us a lot of responsibility," Tails said. What he wanted to say was,

"Count Eggman is an evil man," but he was well mannered.

"Well, why don't you come next door to my house," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "and find a

cookbook that pleases you?"

The youngsters agreed, and followed Justice Tikal Strauss out the door and over to her well-kept house. She led them through an elegant hallway smelling of flowers into an enormous room, and when they saw what was inside, they nearly fainted from delight, Amy especially.

The room was a library. Not a public library, but a private library; that is, a large collection of books belonging to Justice Tikal Strauss. There were shelves and shelves of them, on every wall from the floor to the ceiling, and separate shelves and shelves of them in the middle of the room. The only place there weren't books was in one comer, where there were some large, comfortable-looking chairs and a wooden table with lamps hanging over them, perfect for reading. Although it was not as big as their parents' library, it was as cozy, and the Hedge children were thrilled.

"My word!" Tails said. "This is a wonderful library!"

"Thank you very much," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I've been collecting books for years, and

I'm very proud of my collection. As long as you keep them in good condition, you are

welcome to use any of my books, at any time. Now, the cook-books are over here on the

eastern wall. Shall we have a look at them?"

"Yes," Tails said, "and then, if you don't mind, I should lave to look at any of your books

concerning mechanical engineering. Inventing things is a great interest of mine."

"And I would like to look at books on wolves," Amy said. "Recently I have been

fascinated by the subject of wild animals of North America."

"Book pima na olipia!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Please don't forget to pick out a picture book for me, or a book on the Olympics, you know I love running."

Justice Tikal Strauss smiled. "It is a pleasure to see young people interested in books," she said.

"But first I think we'd better find a good recipe, don't you?"

The children agreed, and for thirty minutes or so they perused several cookbooks that

Justice Tikal Strauss recommended. To tell you the truth, the three orphans were so excited to be out of Count Eggman's house, and in this pleasant library, that they were a little distracted and unable to concentrate on cooking. But finally Amy found a dish that sounded delicious, and easy to make.

"Listen to this," she said. "'Puttanesca.' It's an Italian sauce for pasta. All we need to do is

sauté olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, chopped parsley, and tomatoes together in a pot, and

prepare spaghetti to go with it."

"That sounds easy," Tails agreed, and the Hedge orphans looked at one another.

Perhaps, with the kind Justice Tikal Strauss and her library right next door, the children could

prepare pleasant lives for themselves as easily as making puttanesca sauce for Count Eggman.

Chapter 4

The Hedge orphans copied the puttanesca recipe from the cookbook onto a piece of paper and justice Tikal Strauss was kind enough to escort them to the market to buy the nessasry ingerediants. Count Eggman had not left theem very much money, but the children were able to buy everything they needed. From a streer vendor they purchased olives after tasting several varieties and choosing their favorites. At apasta store they selected interestingly shaped

noodles and asked the woman running the store the proper amount for thirteen people— the

ten people Count Eggman mentioned, and the three of them. Then, at the supermarket, they

purchased garlic, which is a sharp-tasting bulbous plant; anchovies, which are small salty

fish; capers, which are flower buds of a small shrub and taste marvelous; and tomatoes,

which are actually fruits and not vegetables as most people believe. They thought it would be

proper to serve dessert, and bought several envelopes of pudding mix. Perhaps, the orphans

thought, if they made a delicious meal, Count Eggman might be a bit kinder to them.

"Thank you so much for helping us out today," Tails said, as he and his siblings walked

home with Justice Tikal Strauss. "I don't know what we would have done without you."

"You seem like very intelligent people," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I dare say you would have thought of something. But it continues to strike me as odd that Count Eggman's has asked you to prepare such an enormous meal. Well, here we are. I must go inside and put my own groceries away. I hope you children will come over soon and borrow books from my library."

"Tomorrow?" Amy said quickly. "Could we come over tomorrow?"

"I don't see why not," Justice Tikal Strauss said, smiling.

"I can't tell you how much we appreciate this," Tails said, carefully. With their kind parents dead and Count Eggman treating them so abominably, the three children were not used to kindness from adults, and weren't sure if they were expected to do anything back.

"Tomorrow, before we use your library again, Amy and I would be more than happy to do

household chores for you. Sonic isn't really old enough to work, but I'm sure we could find

some way he could help you."

Justice Tikal Strauss smiled at the three children, but her eyes were sad. She reached out a hand and put it on Tails' bangs, and Tails felt more comforted than he had in some time. "That won't be necessary," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "You are always welcome in my home." Then she turned and went into her home, and after a moment of staring after her, the Hedge orphans went into theirs.

For most of the afternoon, Tails, Amy and Sonic cooked the puttanesca sauce according to

the recipe. Tails roasted the garlic and washed and chopped the anchovies. Amy peeled the

tomatoes and pitted the olives. Sonic banged on a pot with a wooden spoon, singing a rather

repetitive song he had written himself. And all three of the children felt less miserable than

they had since their arrival at Count Eggman's. The smell of cooking food is often a calming one, and the kitchen grew cozy as the sauce simmered, a culinary term which means "cooked over low heat." The three orphans spoke of pleasant memories of their parents and about Justice Tikal Strauss, who they agreed was a wonderful neighbor and in whose library they planned to spend a great deal of time. As they talked, they mixed and tasted the chocolate pudding.

Just as they were placing the pudding in the refrigerator to cool, Tails, Amy and Sonic heard a loud, booming sound as the front door was flung open, and I'm sure I don't have to

tell you who was home.

"Orphans?" Count Eggman called out in his scratchy voice. "Where are you, orphans?"

"In the kitchen, Count Eggman," Amy called. "We're just finishing dinner."

"You'd better be," Count Eggman said, and strode into the kitchen. He gazed at all three

Hedge children with his shiny, shiny eyes. "My troupe is right behind me and they are

very hungry. Where is the roast beef?"

"We didn't make roast beef," Tails said. "We made puttanesca sauce."

"What?" Count Eggman asked. "No roast beef?"

"You didn't tell us you wanted roast beef," Amy said.

Count Eggman slid toward the children so that he looked even taller than he was. His eyes

grew even brighter, and his one eyebrow raised in anger. "In agreeing to adopt you," he said,

"I have become your father, and as your father I am not someone to be trifled with. I demand

that you serve roast beef to myself and my guests. "

"We don't have any!" Amy cried. "We made puttanesca sauce!"

"No! No! No!" Sonic shouted.

Count Eggman looked down at Sonic, who had spoken so suddenly. With an inhuman roar he

picked him up in one scraggly hand and raised him so he was staring at him in the eye.

Needless to say, Sonic was very frightened and began crying immediately, too scared to even

try to bite the hand that held him or to run away.

"Put him down immediately, you beast!" Tails shouted. He jumped up, trying to rescue

Sonic from the grasp of the Count, but he was holding him too high to reach. Count Eggman

looked down at Tails and smiled a terrible, toothy grin, raising the wailing Sonic up even

higher in the air. He seemed about to drop him to the floor when there was a large burst of

laughter in the next room.

"Eggman! Where's Eggman?" voices called out Count Eggman paused, still holding the wailing Sonic up in the air, as members of his theater troupe walked into the kitchen. Soon they were crowding the room—an assortment of strange-looking characters of all shapes and sizes.

There was a bald mongoose with a very long nose, and tiny eyeglasses, dressed in a long black robe. There were two women, one raccoon, one rabbot who had bright white powder all over their faces, making them look like ghosts.

Behind the women was a fox with very long and skinny arms, at the end of which were two

hooks instead of paws. There was a hybrid, a combination of a wolf and a weasel who was extremely fat, and who looked like neither a man nor a woman. And behind this person, standing in the doorway, were an assortment of people the children could not see but who promised to be just as frightening.

"Here you are, Eggman," said one of the white faced women, the rabbot. "What in the world are you doing?"

"I'm just disciplining these orphans," Count Eggman said. "I asked them to make dinner, and

all they have made is some disgusting sauce."

"You can't go easy on children," the fox with the hook-hands said. "They must be taught

to obey their elders."

The tall, bald man peered at the youngsters. "Are these," he said to Count Eggman, "those

wealthy children you were telling me about?"

"Yes," Count Eggman said. "They are so awful I can scarcely stand to touch them." With that, he lowered Sonic, who was still wailing, to the floor. Tails and Amy breathed a sigh of

relief that he had not dropped him from that great height.

"I don't blame you," said someone in the doorway.

Count Eggman rubbed his hands together as if he had been holding something revolting

instead of an infant. "Well, enough talk," he said. "I suppose we will eat their dinner, even

though it is all wrong. Everyone, follow me to the dining room and I will pour us some wine.

Perhaps by the time these brats serve us, we will be too drunk to care if it is roast beef or

not."

"Hurrah!" cried several members of the troupe, and they marched through the kitchen,

following Count Eggman into the dining room.

Nobody paid a bit of attention to the children, except for the bald moongoose, who stopped and stared Amy in the eye.

"You're a pretty one," he said, taking her face in his rough hands. "If I were you I would

try not to anger Count Eggman, or he might wreck that pretty little face of yours." Amy shuddered, and the bald man gave a high-pitched giggle and left the room.

The Hedge children, alone in the kitchen, found themselves breathing heavily, as if

they had just run a long distance. Sonic continued to wail, and Tails found that his eyes

were wet with tears as well. Only Amy didn't cry, but merely trembled with fear and

revulsion, a word which here means "an unpleasant mixture of horror and disgust." For

several moments none of them could speak.

"This is terrible, terrible," Tails said finally. "Amy, what can we do?"

"I don't know," she said "I'm afraid."

"Me too," Tails said.

"Hux!" Sonic said, as he stopped crying.

"Let's have some dinner!" someone shouted from the dining room, and the theater troupe

began pounding on the table in strict rhythm, which is an exceedingly rude thing to do.

"We'd better serve the puttanesca," Tails said, "or who knows what Count Eggman will do to

us."

Amy thought of what the bald man had said, about wrecking her face, and nodded. The

two of them looked at the pot of bubbling sauce, which had seemed so cozy while they were

making it and now looked like a vat of blood. Then, leaving Sonic behind in the kitchen,

they walked into the dining room, Tails carrying a bowl of the interestingly shaped noodles

and Amy carrying the pot of puttanesca sauce and a large ladle with which to serve it. The

theater troupe was talking and cackling, drinking again and again from their wine cups and

paying no attention to the Hedge orphans as they circled the table serving everyone

dinner. Amy's right hand ached from holding the heavy ladle. She thought of switching to

her left hand, but because she was right-handed she was afraid she might spill the sauce with

her left hand, which could enrage Count Eggman again. She stared miserably at Eggman's plate of food and found herself wishing she had bought poison at the market and put it in the

puttanesca sauce, but she didn't know what her older brother or Justice Tikal Strauss would make of that. Finally, they were through serving, and Tails and Amy slipped back into

the kitchen. They listened to the wild, rough laughter of Count Eggman and his theater troupe, and they picked at their own portions of food, too miserable to eat. Before long, Eggman's friends were pounding on the table in strict rhythm again, and the orphans went out to the dining room to clear the table, and to serve the chocolate pudding. By now it was obvious

that Count Eggman and his associates had drunk a great deal of wine, and they slouched at the table and spoke much less. Finally, they roused themselves, and trooped back through the

kitchen, scarcely glancing at the children on their way out of the house. Count Eggman looked around the room, which was filled with dirty dishes.

"Because you haven't cleaned up yet," he said to the orphans, "I suppose you can be

excused from attending tonight's performance. But after cleaning up, you are to go straight to

your beds."

Tails had been glaring at the floor, trying to hide how upset he was. But at this he could

not remain silent. "You mean our bed!" he shouted. "You have only provided us with one

bed!"

Members of the theater troupe stopped in their tracks at this outburst, and glanced from

Tails to Count Eggman to see what would happen next. Count Eggman raised his one eyebrow, and his eyes shone bright, but he spoke calmly.

"If you would like another bed," he said, "tomorrow you may go into town and purchase

one. "

"You know perfectly well we haven't any money," Tails said.

"Of course you do," Count Eggman said, and his voice began to get a little louder. "You are

the inheritors of an enormous fortune."

"That money," Tails said, remembering what Mr. Poe said, "is not to be used until I am of age, or Amy."

Count Eggman's face grew very red. For a moment he said nothing. Then, in one sudden

movement, he reached down and struck Tails across the face. Tails fell to the floor, his face

inches from the eye tattooed on Eggman's ankle. His glasses leaped from his face and skittered into a comer. His left cheek, where Eggman had struck him, felt as if it were on fire. The theatre troupe laughed, and a few of them applauded as if Count Eggman had done something very brave instead of something despicable.

"Come on, friends," Count Eggman said to his comrades. "We'll be late for our own performance."

"If I know you, Eggman," said the fox with the hook-hands, "you'll figure out a way to get at

that Hedge money."

"We'll see," Count Eggman said, but his eyes were shining bright as if he already had an idea. "And this two tailed orphan brat already gave me an idea."

There was another loud boom as the front door shut behind Count Eggman and his terrible

friends, and the Hedge children were alone in the kitchen. Amy knelt at Tails side, giving him a hug to try to make him feel better. Sonic ran to his glasses, picked them up, and brought them to him. Tails began to sob, not so much from the pain but from rage at the terrible situation they were in. Tails and Sonic cried with their older brother, and they continued weeping as they washed the dishes, and as they blew out the candles in the dining room, and as they changed out of their clothes and lay down to go to sleep, Tails in the bed,

Amy on the floor, Sonic on his little cushion of curtains. The moonlight shone through the

window, and if anyone had looked into the Hedge orphans' bedroom, they would have

seen three children crying quietly all night long.

Chapter 5:

 _Unless_ you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly

experienced events in your life that have made you cry. So unless you

have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of

weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have

not changed one bit. So it was with the Hedge orphans. Having cried

all night, they rose the next morning feeling as if a weight were off their

shoulders. The three children knew, of course, that they were still in a

terrible situation, but they thought they might do something to make it

better.

The morning's note from Count Eggman ordered them to chop firewood in

the backyard, and as Tails and Amy swung the axe down over each log to break it into smaller pieces, they discussed possible plans of action,

while Sonic chewed meditatively on a small piece of wood.

"Clearly," Tails said, fingering the ugly bruise on his face where Eggman

had struck him, "we cannot stay here any longer. I would rather take my

chances on the streets than live in this terrible place."

"But who knows what misfortunes would befall us on the streets?" Amy pointed out "At

least here we have a roof over our heads."

"I wish our parents' money could be used now, instead of when I come of age, or you," Tails said.

"Why do you mention me?" Amy asked

"For your sake, I am your big brother." Tails replied

" If we did get our money" Amy said "Then we could buy a castle and live in it, with armed guards patrolling the outside to keep out Count Eggman and his troupe."

"And I could have a large inventing studio," Tails said wistfully. He swung the axe

down and split a log neatly in two. "Filled with gears and pulleys and wires and an elaborate

computer system."

"And I could have a large library," Amy said, "as comfortable as Justice Tikal Strauss's, but

more enormous."

"Gibbo! Traa laa" Sonic shrieked, which appeared to mean "And I could have lots of things to bite, and my own running track for me to run in "

"But in the meantime," Tails said, "we have to do something about our predicament ."

"Perhaps Justice Tikal Strauss could adopt us," Amy said. "She said we were always welcome in her home."

"But she meant for a visit, or to use her library," Tails pointed out "She didn't mean _to_

 _live."_

"Perhaps if we explained our situation to her, she would agree to adopt us," Amy said

hopefully, but when Tails looked at her, he saw that she knew it was of no use. Adoption is

an enormous decision, and not likely to happen impulsively. I'm sure you, in your life, have

occasionally wished to be raised by different people than the ones who are raising you, but

knew in your heart that the chances of this were very slim.

"I think we should go see Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said. "He told us when he dropped us here that we could contact him at the bank if we had any questions."

"We don't really have a question," Amy said. "We have a complaint." She was thinking of

Mr. Poe walking toward them at Briny Beach , with his terrible message. Even though the

fire was of course not Mr. Silver Poe's fault, Amy was reluctant to see Mr. Silver Poe because she was afraid of getting more bad news.

"I can't think of anyone else to contact," Tails said. "Mr. Silver Poe is in charge of our affairs,

and I'm sure if he knew how horrid Count Eggman is, he would take us right out of here."

Amy pictured Mr. Silver Poe arriving in his car and putting the Hedge orphans inside, to go

somewhere else, and felt a stirring of hope. Anywhere would be better than here.

"Okay," she said. "Let's get this firewood all chopped and we'll go to the bank."

Invigorated by their plan, the Hedge orphans swung their axes at an amazing speed,

and soon enough they were done chopping firewood and ready to go to the bank. They

remembered Count Eggman saying he had a map of the city, and they looked thoroughly for it,but they couldn't find any trace of a map, and decided it must be in the tower, where they

were forbidden to go. So, without directions of any sort, the Hedge children set off for

the city's banking district in hopes of finding Mr. Silver Poe.

After walking through the meat district, the flower district, and the sculpture district, the

three children arrived at the banking district, pausing to take a refreshing sip of water at the

Fountain of Victorious Finance. The banking district consisted of several wide streets with

large marble buildings on each side of them, all banks. They went first to Trustworthy Bank,

and then to Faithful Savings and Loan, and then to Subservient Financial Services, each time

inquiring for Mr. Silver Poe. Finally, a receptionist at Subservient said she knew that Mr. Silver Poe worked down the street, at Mulctuary Money Management. The building was square and rather plain-looking, though once inside, the three orphans were intimidated by the hustle and bustle of the people as they raced around the large, echoey room. Finally, they asked a uniformed guard whether they hadarrived at the right place to speak to Mr. Silver Poe, and he led them into a large office with many file cabinets and no windows.

"Why, hello," said Mr. Silver Poe, in a puzzled tone of voice. He was sitting at a desk covered in typed papers that looked important and boring. Surrounding a small framed photograph of his wife and his two beastly sons were three telephones with flashing lights. "Please come in."

"Thank you," said Amy, shaking Mr. Poe's hand. The Hedge youngsters sat down in

three large and comfortable chairs.

Mr. Silver Poe opened his mouth to speak, but had to cough into a handkerchief before he could begin. "I'm very busy today," he said, finally. "So I don't have too much time to

chat . Next time you should call ahead of time when you plan on being in the

neighborhood , and I will put some time aside to take you to lunch."

"That would be very pleasant," Tails said, "and we're sorry we didn't contact you before

we stopped by, but we find ourselves in an urgent situation."

"Count Eggman is a madman," Amy said, getting right to the point. "We cannot stay with

him."

"He struck me across the face. See my bruise?" Tails said, but just as he said it, one of

the telephones rang, in a loud, unpleasant wail. "Excuse me," Mr. Silver Poe said, and picked up the

phone. "Silver here," he said into the receiver. "What? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Thank

you." He hung up the phone and looked at the Hedges as if he had forgotten they were

there.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Poe said, "what were we talking about? Oh, yes, Count Eggman. I'm sorry

you don't have a good first impression of him."

"He has only provided us with one bed," Tails said.

"He makes us do a great many difficult chores." Amy said

"He drinks too much wine." Tails added in

"Excuse me," Mr. Silver Poe said, as another telephone rang. "Silver here," he said. "Six. Six.

Six. Six. Eight and a half. Seven. You're welcome." He hung up and quickly wrote

something down on one of his papers, then looked at the children. "I'm sorry," he said, "what

were you saying about Count Eggman? Making you do chores doesn't sound too bad."

"He calls us orphans."

"He has terrible friends."

"He is always asking about our money."

"Poko!" (This was from Sonic.)

Mr. Silver Poe put up his hands to indicate he had heard enough. "Children, children," he said.

"You must give yourselves time to adjust to your new home. You've only been there a few

days."

"We have been there long enough to know Count Eggman is a bad man," Tails said.

Mr. Silver Poe sighed, and looked at each of the three children. His face was kind, but it didn't look like he really believed what the Hedge orphans were saying. "Are you familiar with the Latin term 'in loco parentis'?" he asked.

Tails and Sonic looked at Amy. The biggest reader of the three, she was the most likely

to know vocabulary words and foreign phrases. "Something about trains?" she asked. Maybe

Mr. Silver Poe was going to take them by train to another relative.

Mr. Silver Poe shook his head. "'In loco parentis' means 'acting in the role of parent,'" he said. "It is a legal term and it applies to Count Eggman. Now that you are in his care, the Count may raise you using any methods he sees fit. I'm sorry if your parents did not make you do any household chores, or if you never saw them drink any wine, or if you like their friends better than Count Eggman's friends, but these are things that you must get used to, as Count Eggman is acting in loco parentis. Understand?"

"But he struck my brother!" Amy said. "Look at his face!"

As Amy spoke, Mr. Poe reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and, covering his

mouth, coughed many, many times into it. He coughed so loudly that Amy could not be

certain he had heard her.

"Whatever Count Eggman has done," Mr. Silver Poe said, glancing down at one of his papers and circling a number, "he has acted in loco parentis, and there's nothing I can do about it. Your money will be well protected by myself and by the bank, but Count Eggman's parenting

techniques are his own business. Now, I hate to usher you out posthaste, but I have very

much work to do."

The children just sat there, stunned. Mr. Silver Poe looked up, and cleared his throat.

"'Posthaste,'" he said, "means—"

"—means you'll do nothing to help us," Tails finished for him. He was shaking with

anger and frustration. As one of the phones began ringing, he stood up and walked out of the

room, followed by Amy, who was carrying Sonic. They stalked out of the bank and stood on the street, not knowing what to do next.

"What shall we do next?" Amy asked sadly.

Tails stared up at the sky. He wished he could invent something that could take them

out of there. "It's getting a bit late," he said. "We might as well just go back and think of

something else tomorrow. Perhaps we can stop and see Justice Tikal Strauss."

"But you said she wouldn't help us," Amy said.

"Not for help," Tails said, "for books."

It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and

"figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens

figuratively, it feels like it's happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it

means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping

for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for

other matters. The Hedge orphans walked back to Count Eggman's neighborhood and

stopped at the home of Justice Tikal Strauss, who welcomed them inside and let them choose books from the library. Tails chose several about mechanical inventions, Amy chose several about wolves, and Sonic found a book with many pictures of teeth inside, and another on Jessie Owens his idol. They then went to their room and crowded together on the one bed, reading intently and happily. Figuratively, they escaped from Count Eggman and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Eggman's evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped. In the situation of the orphans, figuratively escaping was not enough, of course, but at the end of a tiring and hopeless day, it would have to do. Tails, Amy and Sonic read their books and, in the back of their minds, hoped that soon their figurative escape would eventually turn into a literal one.

Chapter 6

 _The_ next morning, when the children stumbled sleepily from their bedroom into the kitchen,

rather than a note from Count Eggman they found Count Eggman himself.

"Good morning, orphans," he said. "I have your oatmeal all ready in bowls for you."

The children took seats at the kitchen table and stared nervously into their oatmeal. If you

knew Count Eggman, and he suddenly served you a meal, wouldn't you be afraid there was

something terrible in it, like poison or ground glass? But instead, Tails, Amy, and Sonic

found that fresh raspberries had been sprinkled on top of each of their portions. The

Hedge orphans hadn't had raspberries since their parents died, although they were

extremely fond of them.

"Thank you," Amy said, carefully, picking up one of the raspberries and examining it.

Perhaps these were poison berries that just looked like delicious ones. Count Eggman, seeing

how suspiciously Amy was looking at the berries, smiled and plucked a berry out of Sonic's

bowl. Looking at each of the three youngsters, he popped it into his mouth and ate it.

"Aren't raspberries delicious?" he asked. "They were my favorite berries when I was your

age."

Amy tried to picture Count Eggman as a youngster, but couldn't. His shiny eyes, bony hands,

and shadowy smile all seemed to be things only adults possess. Despite her fear of him,

however, she took her spoon in her right hand and began to eat her oatmeal. Count Eggman had eaten some, so it probably wasn't poisonous, and anyway she was very hungry. Tails began to eat, too, as did Sonic, who got oatmeal and raspberries all over his face.

"I received a phone call yesterday," Count Eggman said, "from Mr. Silver Poe. He told me you children had been to see him."

The children exchanged glances. They had hoped their visit would be taken in confidence, a

phrase which here means "kept a secret between Mr. Silver Poe and themselves and not blabbed to Count Eggman."

"Mr. Silver Poe told me," Count Eggman said, "that you appeared to be having some difficulty adjusting to the life I have so graciously provided for you. I'm very sorry to hear that."

The children looked at Count Eggman. His face was very serious, as if he _were_ very sorry to

hear that, but his eyes were shiny and bright, the way they are when someone is telling a joke.

"Is that so?" Amy said. "I'm sorry Mr. Silver Poe bothered you."

"I'm glad he did," Count Eggman said, "because I want the three of you to feel at home here,

now that I am your father."

The children shuddered a little at that, remembering their own kind father and gazing

sadly at the poor substitute now sitting across the table from them.

"Lately," Count Eggman said, "I have been very nervous about my performances with the

theater troupe, and I'm afraid I might have acted a bit standoffish."

The word "standoffish" is a wonderful one, but it does not describe Count Eggman's behavior

toward the children. It means "reluctant to associate with others," and it might describe

somebody who, during a party, would stand in a comer and not talk to anyone. It would _not_

describe somebody who provides one bed for three people to sleep in, forces them to do

horrible chores, and strikes them across the face. There are many words for people like that,

but "standoffish" is not one of them. Amy and Tails knew the word "standoffish" and Tails almost laughed out loud at Eggman's incorrect use of it. But his face still had a bruise on it, so Tails remained silent.

"Therefore, to make you feel a little more at home here, I would like to have you

participate in my next play. Perhaps if you took part in the work I do, you would be less

likely to run off complaining to Mr. Silver Poe."

"In what way would we participate?" Amy asked. She was thinking of all the chores they

already did for Count Eggman, and was not in the mood to do more.

"Well," Count Eggman said, his eyes shining brightly, "the play is called _The Marvelous_

 _Marriage_ , and it is written by the great playwright Emang Con Gutm. We will give only one

performance, on this Friday night. it is about a man who is very brave and intelligent, played

by me. In the finale, he marries the young, beautiful woman he loves, in front of a crowd of

cheering people. Y _ou_ , Sonic, will play some of the cheering people in the crowd. "

"But he's shorter than most adults," Tails said. "Won't that look strange to the audience?"

"You will be playing two midgets who attend the wedding," Eggman said patiently. "And since I know you are an inventor you will be an assistant in backstage"

Tails didn't know how to respond. He is offering something he would take pleasure in but he smelt a rat, a phrace wich here means 'Tails felt something suspicious is going to happen and Count Eggman's offer is too good to be true.'

"And what will I do? Be a director?" Amy asked.

Count Eggman said. "A pretty girl like you shouldn't be a director."

"But I'd _like_ to," Amy said.

Count Eggman's one eyebrow raised slightly, and the Hedge orphans recognized this sign

of his anger. But then the eyebrow went down again as he forced himself to remain calm.

"But I have such an important role for you onstage," he said. "You are going to play the

young woman I marry."

Amy felt her oatmeal and raspberries shift around in her stomach as if she had just

caught the flu. It was bad enough having Count Eggman acting in loco parentis and announcing himself as their father, but to consider this man her husband, even for the purposes of a play,

was even more dreadful.

"It's a _very_ important role," he continued, his mouth curling up into an unconvincing

smile, "although you have no lines other than 'I do,' which you will say when Justice Tikal Strauss

asks you if you will have me."

"Justice Tikal Strauss?" Amy said. "What does she have to do with it?"

"She has agreed to play the part of the judge," Count Eggman said. Behind him, one of the

eyes painted on the kitchen walls closely watched over each of the Hedge children. "I

asked Justice Tikal Strauss to participate because I wanted to be neighborly, as well as fatherly."

"Count…" Amy said, and then stopped herself. She wanted to argue her way out of

playing his bride, but she didn't want to make him angry. " _Father_ ," she said, "I'm not sure I'm

talented enough to perform professionally. I would hate to disgrace your good name and the

name of Emang Con Gutm. Plus I'll be very busy in the next few weeks reading—and learning how to prepare roast beef," she added quickly, remembering how

he had behaved about dinner.

Count Eggman's reached out one of his spidery hands and stroked Amy on the chin, looking

deep into her eyes. " _You will_ , " he said, "participate in this theatrical performance. I would

prefer it if you would participate voluntarily, but as I believe Mr. Silver Poe explained to you, I can

order you to participate and _you must obey_. " Eggman's sharp and dirty fingernails gently

scratched on Amy's chin, and she shivered. The room was very, very quiet as Eggman finally let

go, and stood up and left without a word. The Hedge children listened to his heavy

footsteps go up the stairs to the tower they were forbidden to enter.

"Well," Tails said hesitantly, "I guess it won't hurt to be in the play. It seems to be very

important to him, and we want to keep on his good side."

"But he must be up to something," Amy said.

"You don't think those berries were poisoned, do you?" Tails asked worriedly.

"No," Amy said. "Eggman is after the fortune we will inherit. Killing us would do him no

good."

"But what good does it do him to have us be in his stupid play?"

"I don't know," Amy admitted miserably. She stood up and started washing out the

oatmeal bowls.

"I wish we knew something more about inheritance law," she said. "I'll bet Count Eggman

has cooked up some plan to get our money, but I don't know what it could be."

"I guess we could ask Mr. Silver Poe about it," Tails said doubtfully, as Amy stood beside him and dried the dishes. "He knows all those Latin legal phrases."

"But Mr. Silver Poe would probably call Count Eggman again, and then he'd know we were on to him," Amy pointed out "Maybe we should try to talk to Justice Tikal Strauss. She's a judge, so she must know all about the law."

"But she's also Eggman's neighbor," Tails replied, "and she might tell him that we had asked…." Then Tails gave a funny look, took his glasses off, which he often did when he was thinking hard. "How could we find out about the law without Eggman's knowledge?"

"Book!" Sonic shouted suddenly. He probably meant something like "Would somebody

please wipe my face?" but it made Tails and Amy look at each other. Book. They were both

thinking the same thing: Surely Justice Tikal Strauss would have a book on inheritance law.

"Count Eggman didn't leave us any chores to do," Amy said, "so I suppose we are free to

visit Justice Tikal Strauss and her library."

She smiled. "Yes indeed," she said. "And you know, today I don't think I'll choose a book

on wolves."

"Nor I," Tails said, "on mechanical engineering. I think I'd like to read about inheritance

law."

"Well, let's go," Amy said. "Justice Tikal Strauss said we could come over soon, and we don't

want to be _standoffish._ "

At the mention of the word that Count Eggman had used so ridiculously, the Hedge

orphans all laughed, even Sonic, who of course did not have a very big vocabulary. Swiftly

they put away the clean oatmeal bowls in the kitchen cupboards, which watched them with

painted eyes. Then the three young people ran next door. Friday, the day of the performance,

was only a few days off, and the children wanted to figure out Count Eggman's plan as quickly as possible.

Chapter 7:

 _There_ are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there

are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different. For

instance, people who hate stories in which terrible things happen to small children should put

this book down immediately. But one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a

book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and

very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is

an incentive—the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade _you_ to do

something _you_ don't want to do"—to read long, dull, and difficult books.

The Hedge children had a slightly different incentive for reading these books, of

course. Their incentive was not heaps of money, but preventing Count Eggman from doing

something horrible to them in order to get heaps of money. But even with this incentive,

getting through the law books in Justice Tikal Strauss's private library was a very, very, very hard task.

"Goodness," Justice TikalStrauss said, when she came into the library and saw what they were reading. She had let them in the house but immediately went into the backyard to do her

gardening, leaving the Hedge orphans alone in her glorious library. "I thought _you_ were

interested in mechanical engineering, animals of North America, teeth and sport. Are _you_ sure _you_ want to read those enormous law books? Even _I_ don't like reading them, and I work in law."

"Yes," Tails lied, "I find them very interesting, Justice Tikal Strauss."

"So do I," Amy said. "Tails and I are considering a career in law, so we are fascinated

by these books."

"Well," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "Sonic can't possibly be interested. Maybe he'd like to come help me with the gardening."

"Wipi!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "I'd much prefer gardening to sitting around

watching my siblings struggle through law books."

"Well, make sure he doesn't eat any dirt, or get hurt when running," Tails said, bringing Sonic over to the judge.

"Of course," said Justice Tikal Strauss. "We wouldn't want him to be sick for the big

performance."

Tails and Amy exchanged a look. "Are _you_ excited about the play?" Amy asked

hesitantly.

Justice Tikal Strauss's face lit up. "Oh yes," she said. "I've always wanted to perform onstage,

ever since I was a little girl. And now Count Eggman has given me the opportunity to live my

lifelong dream. Aren't you thrilled to be a part of the theater?"

"I guess so," Amy said.

"Of course you are," Judge Tikal Strauss said, stars in her eyes and Sonic in her hands. She left the library and Tails and Amy looked at each other and sighed.

"She's stagestruck," Amy said. "She won't believe that Count Eggman is up to something, no

matter what."

"She wouldn't help us anyway," Tails pointed out glumly. "She's a judge, and she'd just

start babbling about in loco parentis like Me. Poe."

"That's why we've got to find a legal reason to stop the performance," Amy said firmly.

"Have you found anything in your book yet?"

"Nothing helpful," Tails said, glancing down at a piece of scrap paper on which he had

been taking notes. "Fifty years ago there was a woman who left an enormous sum of money

to her pet weasel, and none to her three sons. The three sons tried to prove that the woman

was insane so the money would go to them."

"What happened?" Amy asked.

"I think the weasel died," Tails replied, "but I'm not sure. I have to look up some of the

words. "

"I don't think it's going to help us anyway," Amy said.

"Maybe Count Eggman is trying to prove that _we're_ insane, so he'd get the money," Tails

said.

"But why would making us be in _The Marvelous Marriage_ prove we were insane?" Amy

asked.

"I don't know," Tails admitted. "I'm stuck. Have you found anything?"

"Around the time of your weasel lady," Amy said, flipping through the enormous book she

had been reading, "a group of actors put on a production of Shakespeare's _Macbeth,_ and none

of them wore any clothing."

Tails blushed. "You mean they were all naked, onstage?"

"Only briefly," Amy said, smiling. "The police came and shut down the production. I

don't think that's very helpful, either. It was just pretty interesting to read about."

She sighed. "Maybe Count Eggman isn't up to anything," she said. "I'm not interested in

performing in his play, but perhaps we're all worked up about nothing. Maybe Count Eggman

really _is_ just trying to welcome us into the family."

"How can you say that?" Tails cried. "He struck me across the face."

"But there's no way he can get hold of our fortune just by putting us in a play," Amy said.

"My eyes are tired from reading these books, Amy, and they aren't helping us. I'm going to

go out and help Justice Strauss in the garden."

Amy watched her brother leave the library and felt a wave of hopelessness wash over her.

The day of the performance was not far off, and she hadn't even figured out what Count Eggman was up to, let alone how to stop him to marry her. all his life, Amy had believed that if you read enough books you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.

"You there!" A voice coming from the doorway startled Amy out of her thoughts.

"Count Eggman sent me to look for you. You are to return to the house immediately."

Eggman turned and saw one of the members of Count Eggman's theater troupe, the one with

hooks for hands, standing in the doorway. "What are you doing in this musty old room,

anyway?" he asked in his croak of a voice, walking over to where Amy was sitting.

Narrowing his beady eyes, he read the title of one of the books. _"Inheritance Law and Its_

 _Implications?"_ he said sharply. "Why are you reading that?"

"Why do you think I'm reading it?" Amy said.

"I'll tell you what I think." The man put one of his terrible hooks on Amy's shoulder. "I

think you should never be allowed inside this library again, at least until Friday. We don't

want a little girl getting big ideas. Eggy wants you to reherce for the play. Now, where is your brother and that hideous baby?"

"In the garden," Amy said, shrugging the hook off of her shoulder. "Why don't you go

and get them?"

The man leaned over until his face was just inches from Amy's, so close that the man's

features flickered into a blur. "Listen to me very carefully, little girl," he said, breathing out

foul steam with every word. "The only reason Count Eggman hasn't torn you limb from limb is that he hasn't gotten hold of your money. He allows you to live while he works out his plans. But ask yourself this, you little bookworm: What reason will he have to keep you alive after he has your money, after 'marrying' you? What do you think will happen to you then?"

Amy felt an icy chill go through her as the horrible man spoke. She had never been so

terrified in all her life. She found that her arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably, as if she were having some sort of fit. Her mouth was making strange sounds, like Sonic always did, as she struggled to find something to say. "Ah—" Amy heard herself choke out. "Ah—"

"When the time comes," the hook-handed man said smoothly, ignoring her noises, "I

believe Count Eggman just might leave you to me. So if I were you, I' d start acting a little nicer."

The man stood up again and put both his hooks in front of Amy's face, letting the light from

the reading lamps reflect off the wicked-looking devices. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have

to fetch your poor orphan siblings."

Amy felt her body go limp as the hook-handed man left the room, and she wanted to sit

there for a moment and catch her breath. But her mind wouldn't let him. This was her last

moment in the library, and perhaps her last opportunity to foil Count Eggman's plan. But what to do? Hearing the faint sounds of the hook-handed man talking to Justice Tikal Strauss in the garden,

Amy looked frantically around the library for something that could be helpful.

Then, just as she heard the man's footsteps heading back his way, Amy spied one book,

and quickly grabbed it. She untucked her shirt and put the book inside, hastily retucking it just

as the hook-handed man reentered the library, escorting Tails and carrying Sonic, who was

trying without success to bite the man's hooks.

"I'm ready to go," Amy said quickly, and walked out the door before the man could get a

good look at her. She walked quickly ahead of her siblings, hoping that nobody would notice

the book-shaped lump in her shirt. Maybe, just maybe, the book Amy was smuggling could

save their lives.

Chapter 8:

Amy and Tails stood by the window, squinting as they read the smuggled book by the moonlight that trickled into the room, Amy eventually dropped off a few hours later and Tails was left awake. He occasionally glanced at his siblings. Amy was sleeping fitfully—a

word which here means "with much tossing and turning"—on the lumpy bed, she did try to help but gave up, and Sonic had wormed his way into the pile of curtains so that he just looked like a small heap of doth.

Amy had told her siblings about the book, but she hoped she didn't give them false

hope. She wasn't sure the book would help them out of their dilemma. But she gave up on it, leaving Tails to help.

The book was long, and difficult to read, and Tails became more and more tired as the

night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would dose. He found himself reading the same

sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found

himself reading the same sentence over and over. But then he would remember the way the

hook-hands of Count Eggman's associate had glinted in the sun in the garden, and would imagine them tearing into his flesh. Amy found a small scrap of paper and tore it into strips, which she used to mark significant parts of the book, and Amy found one or two. Tails found the rest needed.

By the time the light outside grew grey with the approaching dawn, Tails had found out

all he needed to know. His hopes rose along with the sun. Finally, when the first few birds

began to sing, Tails tiptoed to the door of the bedroom and eased it open quietly, careful not

to wake the restless Amy or Sonic, who was still hidden in the pile of curtains. Then he

went to the kitchen and sat and waited for Count Eggman.

He didn't have to wait long before he heard Eggman tromping down the tower stairs. When

Count Eggman walked into the kitchen, he saw Tails sitting at the table and smirked, a word

which here means "smiled in an unfriendly, phony way."

"Hello, orphan," he said. "You're up early."

Tails' heart was beating fast, but he felt calm on the outside, as if he had on a layer of

invisible armor. "I've been up all night," he said, "reading this book." He put the book out on

the table so Eggman could see it. "It's called _Nuptial Law,_ " Tails said, "and I learned many

interesting things while reading it, even though I am more of an inventor, not a reader."

Count Eggman had taken out a bottle of wine to pour himself some breakfast, but when he

saw the book he stopped, and sat down.

"The word 'nuptial,'" Tails said, "means 'relating to marriage.'"

"I _know_ what the word means," Count Eggman growled. "Where did you get that book?"

"From Justice Tikal Strauss's library," Tails said. "But that's not important. What's important is that I have found out your plan.",

"Is that so?" Count Eggman said, his one eyebrow raising. "And what is my plan, you little

runt?"

Tails ignored the insult and opened the book to where one of the scraps of paper was

marking his and Amy's place. "'The laws of marriage in this community are very simple,'" he read out loud.

"'The requirements are as follows: the presence of a judge, a statement of "I do" by both

the bride and the groom, and the signing of an explanatory document in the bride's own

hand.", Tails put down the book and pointed at Count Eggman. "If my sister says 'I do' and signs a piece of paper, while Justice Tikal Strauss is in the room, then she is legally married. This play you're putting on shouldn't be called _The Marvelous Marriage._ It should be called _The_ _Menacing Marriage._ You're not going to marry Amy figuratively—you're going to marry

her literally! This play won't be pretend; it will be real and legally binding."

Count Eggman laughed a rough, hoarse laugh. "Your sister isn't old enough to get married."

"She can get married if she has the permission of her legal guardian, acting in loco

parentis," Tails said. "Amy read that, too., and she told me You can't fool us."

"Why in the world would I want to actually marry your sister?" Count Eggman asked. "It is

true she is very pretty, but a man like myself can acquire any number of beautiful women."

Tails turned to a different section of _Nuptial Law._ "'A legal husband,'" he read out loud,

"'has the right to control any money in the possession of his legal wife.'" Tails gazed at

Count Eggman in triumph. "You're going to marry my sister to gain control of the Hedge

fortune! Or at least, that's what you _planned_ to do. But when I show this information to Mr.

Silver Poe, your play will _not_ be performed, and you will go to jail!"

Count Eggman's eyes grew very shiny, but he continued to smirk at Tails. This was

surprising. Tails had guessed that once he announced what he knew, this dreadful man

would have been very angry, even violent. After all, he'd had a furious outburst just because

he'd wanted roast beef instead of puttanesca sauce. Surely he'd be even more enraged to have

his plan discovered. But Count Eggman just sat there as calmly as if they were discussing the

weather.

"I guess you've found me out," Eggman said simply. "I suppose you're right: I'll go to prison,

and you and the other orphans will go free. Now, why don't you run up to your room and

wake your sister and brother? I'm sure they'll want to know all about your grand victory over my evil ways."

Tails looked closely at Count Eggman, who was continuing to smile as if he had just told a

clever joke. Why wasn't he threatening Tails or Amy in anger, or tearing his hair out in frustration, or

running to pack his clothes and escape? This wasn't happening at all the way Tails and Amy had pictured it.

"Well, I _will_ go tell my siblings," he said, and walked back into his bedroom. Amy was

still dozing on the bed and Sonic was still hidden beneath the curtains. Tails woke Amy up

first.

"I stayed up all night finishing it off," Tails said breathlessly, as his sister opened her eyes, "and I discovered what Count Eggman is up to. He plans to marry you for real, when you and Justice Tikal Strauss and everyone all think it's just a play, and once he's your husband he'll have control of our parents' money and he can dispose of us."

Amy said nothing.

"The only legal requirements of marriage.." Tails explained, thinking his sister wasn't fully up. Only for Amy to reply

"I know. I figured it out before I slept. There was no need for you to continue but I am gratfull for it. But… What are we going to do!?"

"We can show this to Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said, pointing to the book, "and he will finally believe us that Count Eggman is up to no good. Quick, get dressed while I wake up Sonic, and we can be at the bank by the time it opens."

Amy, who usually moved slowly in the mornings, nodded and immediately got out of

bed and went to the cardboard box to find some proper clothing. Tails walked over to the

lump of curtains to wake up his younger brother.

"Sonic," he called out kindly, putting his hand on where he thought his brother's head was.

"Sonic "

There was no answer. Tails called out "Sonic" again, and pulled away the top fold of the

curtains to wake up the youngest Hedge child. "Sonic," he said, but then he stopped. For

underneath the curtain was nothing but another curtain. He moved aside all the layers, but his

little brother was nowhere to be found. _"Sonic!"_ he yelled, looking around the room. Amy

dropped the dress she was holding and began to help him search. They looked in every

corner, under the bed, and even inside the cardboard box. But Sonic was gone.

"Where can he be?" Amy asked worriedly. "He's is the type to run off, but in a situation like this?"

"Where can he be indeed?" said a voice behind them, and the two children turned around.

Count Eggman was standing in the doorway, watching Tails and Amy as they searched the

room. His eyes were shining brighter than they ever had, and he was still smiling like he'd

just uttered a joke.

Chapter 9:

" _Yes,_ " Count Eggman continued, "it certainly is strange to find a child missing. And one so

small, and helpless."

"Where's Sonic?" Amy cried. "What have you done with him?"

Count Eggman continued to speak as if he had not heard Amy. "But then again, one sees

strange things every day. In fact, if you two orphans follow me out to the backyard, I think

we will all see something rather unusual."

The Hedge children didn't say anything, but followed Count Eggman through the house

and out the back door. Tails looked around the small, scraggly yard, in which he had not

been since he and Amy had been forced to chop wood. The pile of logs they had made was

still lying there untouched, as if Count Eggman had merely made them chop logs for his own

amusement, rather than for any purpose. Tails shivered, still in his PJs, but as he

gazed here and there he saw nothing unusual.

"You're not looking in the right place," Count Eggman said. "For children who read so much,

you two are remarkably unintelligent."

Amy looked over in the direction of Count Eggman, but could not meet his eyes. The eyes on

his face, that is. She was staring at his feet, and could see the tattooed eye that had been

watching the Hedge orphans since their troubles had begun. Then her eyes traveled up

Count Eggman's lean, shabbily dressed body, and she saw that he was pointing up with one

scrawny hand. She followed his gesture and found herself looking at the forbidden tower. It

was made of dirty stone, with only one lone window, and just barely visible in the window

was what looked like a birdcage.

"Oh no," Tails said in a small, scared voice, and Amy looked again. It _was_ a birdcage,

dangling from the tower window like a flag in the wind, but inside the birdcage she could see

a small and frightened Sonic. When Amy looked closely, she could see there was a large

piece of tape across her brother's mouth, and ropes around his body, paticulary around the legs. He was utterly trapped.

"Let him go!" Amy said to Count Eggman. "He has done nothing to you! He is an _infant!"_

"Well, now," Count Eggman said, sitting on a stump. "If you really want me to let him go, I

will. But surely even a stupid brat like you might realize that if I let him go—or, more

accurately, if I ask my comrade to let him go—poor little Sonic might not survive the fall

down to the ground. That's a thirty-foot tower, which is a very long way for a very little

person to fall, even when he's inside a cage. But if you insist—"

 _"No!"_ Tails cried. _"Don't"_

Amy looked into Count Eggman's eyes, and then at the small parcel that was her brother,

hanging from the top of the tower and moving slowly in the breeze. She pictured Sonic

toppling from the tower and onto the ground, pictured her brother's last thoughts being ones of sheer terror. _"Please,"_ she said to Eggman, feeling tears in her eyes. "He's just a baby. We'll do _anything, anything._ Just don't harm him."

 _"Anything?"_ Count Eggman asked, his eyebrow rising. He leaned in toward Amy and gazed

into his eyes. _"Anything?_ Would you, for instance, consider marrying me during tomorrow night's performance?"

Amy stared at him. She had an odd feeling in her stomach, as if _she_ were the one being

thrown from a great height. The really frightening thing about Eggman, she realized, was that he was very smart after all. He wasn't merely an unsavory drunken brute, but an unsavory,

 _clever_ drunken brute.

"While you were busy reading books and making accusations," Count Eggman said, "I had

one of my quietest, sneakiest assistants skulk into your bedroom and steal little Sonic away.

He is perfectly safe, for now. But I consider him to be a stick behind a stubborn mule, and as a small punishment for you finding out my plans, Tails, you will not be working backstage."

"Our brother is not a stick," Tails said. "and I dont care what I am in that rotten play, LET HIM GO!"

"A stubborn mule," Count Eggman explained, "does not move in the direction its owner wants it to. In that way, it is like you children, who insist on mucking up my plans. Any animal owner will tell you that a stubborn mole will move in the proper direction if there is a carrot in front of it, and a stick behind it. It will move toward the carrot, because it wants the reward of food, and away from the stick, because it does not want the punishment of pain. Likewise, you will do what I say, to avoid the punishment of the loss of your sister, and because you want the reward of surviving this experience. Now, Amy, let me ask you again: _will_ you marry me?"

Amy swallowed, and looked down at Count Eggman's tattoo. She could not bring herself to

answer.

"Come now," Count Eggmans said, his voice faking—a word which here means "feigning"—

kindness. He reached out a hand and stroked Amy's hair. "Would it be so terrible to be my

bride, to live in my house for the rest of your life? You're such a lovely girl, after the

marriage I wouldn't dispose of you like your brother's."

Amy imagined sleeping beside Count Eggman, and waking up each morning to look at this

terrible man. She pictured wandering around the house, trying to avoid him all day, and

cooking for his terrible friends at night, perhaps every night, for the rest of her life. But then

she looked up at her helpless brother and knew what her answer must be. "If you let Sonic go," she said finally, "I will marry you."

"I will let Sonic go," Count Eggman answered, "after tomorrow night's performance. In the

meantime, he will remain in the tower for safekeeping. And, as a warning, I will tell you that

my assistants will stand guard at the door to the tower staircase, in case you were getting any

ideas."

"You're a terrible man," Tails spat out, but Count Eggman merely smiled again.

"I may be a terrible man," Count Eggman said, "but I have been able to concoct a foolproof

way of getting your fortune, which is more than you've been able to do." With that, he began

to stride toward the house. "Remember that, orphans," he said. "You may have read more

books than I have, but it didn't help you gain the upper hand in this situation. Now, give me

that book which gave you such grand ideas, and do the chores assigned to you."

Tails sighed, and relinquished—a word which here means "gave to Count Eggman even

though he didn't want to"—the book on nuptial law. He began to follow Count Eggman into the house, Amy stayed still as a statue, her book mind had stopped. She was defeated, but then she rememberd something that her older brother did when she was a baby and smiled, Tails for the second time was going to help. Tails was also thinking the same thing, but he added another thing to it, slowly without making Count Eggman see what he was doing, he tied his bangs into a ribbion, and made sure his Tails were prepared for the night.

Chapter 10:

 _That_ night, Amy for the second time was the Hedge orphan sleeping fitfully in the bed,

and Tails was awake. All day, the two siblings had wandered around the house, doing the assigned chores and scarcely speaking to each other. Tails was too

tired and despondent to speak but was holed up in the inventing

area of his mind. When night approached, Tails gathered up the curtains that had been Sonic's bed and brought them to the door to the tower stairs, where the enormous assistant of Count Eggman's, the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, was standing guard.

Tails asked whether he could bring the blankets to his brother, to make him

more comfortable during the night. The enormous creature merely looked

at Tails with its blank white eyes and shook its head, then dismissed him

with a silent gesture.

Tails knew, of course, that Sonic was too terrified to be comforted by

a handful of draperies, but he hoped that he would be allowed a few

moments to hold him and tell him that everything would turn out all right. Also, he wanted to

do something known in the crime industry as "casing the joint." "Casing the joint" means

observing a particular location in order to formulate a plan. For instance, if you are a bank

robber—although I hope you aren't—you might go to the bank a few days before you planned

to rob it. Perhaps wearing a disguise, you would look around the bank and observe security

guards, cameras, and other obstacles, so you could plan how to avoid capture or death during

your burglary.

Tails, a law-abiding citizen, was not planning to rob a bank, but he was planning to

rescue Sonic, and was hoping to catch a glimpse of the tower room in which his brother was

being held prisoner, so as to make his plan more easily. But it appeared that he wasn't going

to be able to case the joint after all. This made Tails nervous as he sat on the floor by the

window, working on his invention as quietly as he could.

Few people knew but Tails can fly by using his two tails, and he planned to use it, along with another invention to make it easier to save Sonic.

Tails had very few materials with which to invent something, and he didn't want to

wander around the house looking for more for fear of arousing the suspicions of Count Eggman and his troupe. Above the window was a sturdy metal rod from which the curtains had hung, and Tails took it down. Using one of the

rocks Eggman had left in a pile in the corner, he broke the curtain rod into two pieces. He then bent each piece of the rod into several sharp angles, leaving tiny cuts on his hands as he did so. Then Tails took down the painting of the eye. On the back of the painting, as on the back of many paintings, was a small piece of wire to hang on the hook. He removed the wire and used it to connect the two pieces together. Tails had now made what looked like a large

metal spider.

He then went over to the cardboard box and took out the ugliest of the clothes that Mrs.

Poe had purchased, the outfits the Hedge orphans would never wear no matter how

desperate they were. Working quickly and quietly, he began to tear these into long, narrow

strips, and to tie these strips together. Among Tails' many useful skills was a vast

knowledge of different types of knots. The particular knot he was using was called the

Devil's Tongue. A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century,

and named it the Devil's Tongue because it twisted this way and that, in a most complicated

and eerie way. The Devil's Tongue was a very useful knot, and when Tails tied the cloth

strips together, end to end, it formed a sort of rope. As he worked, he remembered

something his parents had said to him when Amy was born, and again when they brought

Sonic home from the hospital. "You are the eldest Hedge child," they had said, kindly

but firmly. "And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger

siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don't get

into trouble." Tails remembered his promise, and thought of his face whose bruised face still

looked sore, he did it to protect his siblings, he thought of how Amy must feel about marrying Eggman, utterly deafeted and forbidden to leave their room, and Sonic, dangling from the top of the tower like a flag, and began working faster. Even though Count Eggman was of course the cause of all this misery, Tails felt as if he had broken his promise to his parents, and vowed to make it right.

Eventually, using enough of the ugly clothing, Tails had a rope that was, he hoped, just

over thirty feet long. He tied one end of it to the metal spider, and looked at his handiwork.

What he had made was called a grappling hook, which is something used for climbing up

the sides of buildings, usually for a nefarious purpose. Using the metal end to hook onto

something at the top of the tower, and the rope to aid her fly more strait, Tails hoped to reach the top of the tower, untie Sonic's cage, and fly back down. This was, of course, a very risky plan, five reasons, first he isn't good at flying strait up which was the reason why he had the grappling hook, second he didn't know how to get Sonic out, third if he did, he had to fly down in a zig zag, which was the only way he knew how to fly while holding onto Sonic, fourth it was it was dangerous, and finally he had made the grappling hook himself, instead

of purchasing it at a store that sold such things.

But agrappling hook was all Tails could

think of to make without a proper inventing laboratory, and time was running short. Amy of cource knew his plan and helpt find him the curtain rods and more cloth they found that Count Eggman oviously didn't want any more. Amy wished Tails luck when he went outside. Once outside, Tails realized his plan was even more difficult than he had thought. The night was quiet, which would mean he would have to make practically no noise at all, he could fly up to the cage, but he knew that the cage would be locked and what if the window too was locked, he had to hover while getting Sonic out, wich was hard as he never hovered while flying before. And the night was dark, so it was hard to see where he could toss the grappling hook and have the metal arms hook onto some thing. But, standing there shivering in his PJs, Tails knew he had to try. Using his left hand, he threw the grappling hook as high and as hard as he could, and waited to see if it would catch onto something.

 _Clang!_ The hook made a loud noise as it hit the tower, but it didn't stick to anything, and

came crashing back down. His heart pounding, Tails stood stock-still, wondering if Count

Eggman or one of his accomplices would come and investigate. But nobody arrived after a few moments, and Tails, swinging the hook over his head like a lasso, tried again.

 _Clang! Clang!_ The grappling hook hit the tower twice as it bounced back down to the

ground. Tails waited again, listening for footsteps, but all he heard was his own terrified

pulse. He decided to try one more time.

 _Clang!_ The grappling hook hit the tower, and fell down again, hitting Tails hard in the

shoulder. One of the arms tore his PJs and cut through his fur. Biting down on his

hand to keep from crying out in pain, Tails felt the place in his shoulder where he had been

struck, and it was wet with blood. His arm throbbed in pain.

At this point in the proceedings, if I were Tails, I would have given up, but just as he

was about to turn around and go inside the house, he pictured how scared Sonic must be,

and, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Tails used his left hand to throw the hook again.

 _Clang!_ The usual _clang!_ sound stopped halfway through, and Tails saw in the dim light

of the moon that the hook wasn't falling. Nervously, he gave the rope a good yank, and it

stayed put. The grappling hook had worked!

His tails began to spin as fast as Tails can do as he flew up, he hoped he can grip on the grappling hook rope, while finding a way to get Sonic out with the other hand then fly away with him. When he slowly flew up, grabbing on the grappling hook rope, to make himself fly strait, keeping in mind his promise to his parents and the horrible things Count Eggman would do if his villainous plan worked. He was certain that at any moment the cloth would

tear, or the hook would slip, and Tails would be forsed to fly down, or get hit by the hook with goodness knows what will happen after. But thanks to his adroit inventing skills—the word "adroit" here means "skillful"—everything worked the

way it was supposed to work, and suddenly Tails found himself feeling a piece of metal

instead of a cloth rope. He stopped spinning his tails, grabbed onto the rope, opened his eyes and saw his brother Sonic, who was looking at him frantically and trying to say something past the strip of tape. Tails had arrived at the top of

the tower, right at the window where Sonic was tied.

The eldest hedge orphan was about to grab his brother's cage and begin his fly down

when he saw something that made him stop. It was the spidery end of the grappling hook,

which after several attempts had finally stuck onto something on the tower. Tails had

guessed, during his climb or fly, that it had found some notch in the stone, or part of the window, or perhaps a piece of furniture inside the tower room, and stuck there. But that wasn't what the hook had stuck on. Tails grappling hook had stuck on another hook. It was one of the hooks on the hook-handed fox. And his other hook, Tails saw, was glinting in the

moonlight as it reached right toward him.

Chapter 11:

 _" How_ pleasant that you could join us," the hook-handed fox said in a sickly sweet voice.

Tails immediately tried to fly back down, but Count Eggman's assistant was too

quick for him. In one movement he hoisted him into the tower room and, with a flick of his

hook, sent his rescue device clanging to the ground. Now Tails was as trapped as his brother.

"Have a seat."

"What are you going to do with me?" Tails asked.

"I said _have a seat!"_ the hook-handed fox snarled, and pushed him into a chair.

Tails looked around the dim and messy room. I am certain that over the course of your

own life, you have noticed that people's rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for

instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty

accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the

Hedge orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a rabbit whose

name is Cream. These are items that are very precious and dear to me. The tower room held

objects that were very dear and precious to Count Eggman, and they were terrible things. There were scraps of paper on which he had written his evil ideas in an illegible scrawl, lying in messy piles on top of the copy of _Nuptial Law_ he had taken away from Amy. There were a

few chairs and a handful of candles which were giving off flickering shadows. Littered all

over the floor were empty wine bottles and dirty dishes. But most of all were the drawings

and paintings and carvings of eyes, big and small, all over the room. There were eyes painted

on the ceilings, and scratched into the grimy wooden floors. There were eyes scrawled along

the windowsill, and one big eye painted on the knob of the door that led to the stairs. It was a

terrible place.

The hook-handed fox reached into a pocket of his greasy overcoat and pulled out a

walkie-talkie. With some difficulty, he pressed a button and waited a moment. "Boss, it's

me," he said. "that blushing bride's brother just flew up here to try and rescue the running rat." He paused as Count Eggman said something. "I don't know. With some sort of rope, and he can fly with his tails."

"It was a grappling hook," Tails said, and tore off a sleeve of his PJs make a

bandage for his shoulder. "I made it myself, I used it so I can fly strait, well Amy helped me."

"He says it was a grappling hook, and your bride helped him," the hook-handed man said into the walkie-talkie. "I don't know how, boss. Yes, boss. Yes, boss, of course I understand she's _yours._ Yes, boss." He pressed a button to disconnect the line, and then turned to face Tails. "Count Eggman is very displeased with his bride. "

"She is not his bride," Tails said bitterly.

"Very soon she will be," the hook-handed fox said, wagging his hook the way most

people would wag a finger. "In the meantime, however, I have to go and fetch her.

The three of you will be locked in this room until night falls. That way, Count Eggman can be

sure you will all stay out of mischief." With that, the hook-handed fox stomped out of the room.

Tails heard the door lock behind him, and then listened to his footsteps fading away

down the stairs. He immediately went over to Sonic, and put a hand on his little head.

Afraid to untie or untape him for fear of incurring—a word which here means "bringing

about"—Count Eggman's wrath, Tails stroked Sonic's quills and murmured that everything was all right.

But of course, everything was _not_ all right. Everything was all wrong. As the first light of

morning trickled into the tower room, Tails reflected on all the awful things he and his

siblings had experienced recently. Their parents had died, suddenly and horribly. Mrs. Poe

had bought them ugly clothing. They had moved into Count Eggman's house and were treated

terribly. Mr. Silver Poe had refused to help them. They had discovered a fiendish plot involving marrying Amy, making her feel helpless and stealing the Hedge fortune. Tails had tried to confront Eggman with knowledge he'd learned in Justice Tikal Strauss's library and failed. Poor Sonic had been captured.

And now, Tails had tried to rescue Sonic and found herself captured as well. All in all, the

hedge orphans had encountered catastrophe after catastrophe, and Tails found their

situation lamentably deplorable, a phrase which here means "it was not at all enjoyable."

The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs brought Tails out of his thoughts, and soon

the hook-handed fox opened the door and thrust a very tired, scared Amy into the room.

"Here's the bride," the hook-handed fox said. "And now, I must go help Count Eggman

with final preparations for tonight's performance. No monkey business, you two, or I will

have to tie you up and let you dangle out of the window as well." Glaring at them, he locked

the door again and tromped downstairs.

Amy blinked and looked around the filthy room. She was still in her pajamas.

"I tried to rescue Sonic," Tails said, "using an invention of mine to fly up the tower, you know I can't fly strait."

"I know, I guessed what happened, the hooked handed fox caught you, and now we're doomed. The hook-handed fox said he'd keep us here until tonight, and then

it's _The Marvelous Marriage_ and I am doomed " Amy said, then she asked "Do you think you could invent something that would help us escape?" looking around the room.

"Maybe," Tails said. "And why don't you go through those books and papers? Perhaps

there's some information that could be of use."

For the next few hours, Tails and Amy searched the room and their own minds for

anything that might help them. Tails looked for objects with which he could invent

something. Amy read through Count Eggman's papers and books. From time to time, they would go over to Sonic and smile at him, and par his head, to reassure him. Occasionally, Tails and Amy would speak to each other, but mostly they were silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"If we had any kerosene," Tails said, around noon, "I could make Molotov cocktails

with these bottles."

"What are Molotov cocktails?" Amy asked.

"They're small bombs made inside bottles," Tails explained. "We could throw them our

the window and attract the attention of passersby."

"But we don't have any kerosene," Amy said mournfully.

They were silent for several hours.

"If we were polygamists," Amy said, "Count Eggman's marriage plan wouldn't work."

"What are polygamists?" Tails asked.

"Polygamists are people who marry more than one person,'" Amy explained. "In this

community, polygamists are breaking the law, even if they have married in the presence of a

judge, with the statement of 'I do' and the signed document in their own hand. I read it here in

 _Nuptial Law._ "

"But we're not polygamists," Tails said mournfully.

They were silent for several _more_ hours.

"We could break these bottles in half," Tails said, "and use them as knives, but I'm afraid

that Count Eggman's troupe would overpower us."

"I could say 'I don't' instead of 'I do,'" Amy said, "but I'm afraid Count Eggman would

order Sonic dropped off the tower."

"I certainly would," Count Eggman said, and the children jumped. They had been so involved

in their conversation that they hadn't heard him come up the stairs and open the door. He was

wearing a fancy suit and his eyebrow had been waxed so it looked as shiny as his eyes.

Behind him stood the hook-handed fox, who smiled and waved a hook at the youngsters.

"Come, orphans," Count Eggman said. "It is time for the big event. My associate here will stay behind in this room, and we will keep in constant contact through our walkie-talkies. If

 _anything_ goes wrong during tonight's performance, your brother will be dropped to his death.

Come along now."

Tails and Amy looked at each other, and then at Sonic, still dangling in his cage, and

followed Count Eggman out the door. As Tails walked down the tower stairs, he felt a heavy

sinking in his heart as all hope left him. There truly seemed to be no way out of their

predicament.

Amy was feeling the same way, until she reached out with her right hand to grasp the

banister, for balance. She looked at her right hand for a second, and began to think, all the

way down the stairs, and out the door, and the short walk down the block to the theater,

Amy thought and thought and thought, harder than she had in her entire life.

Chapter 12:

As Tails and Amy Hedge stood still in their PJs, backstage at count Eggman's theatre they were 2 of minds, a phrace wich here means "they felt 2 different ways at the same time" On one hand, they were of cource filled with dread. From the murmur of voices they heard on the stage, the two Hedge orphans could tell hat the performance of _The Marvelous Marriage_ had begun, and it seemed too late to do

anything to foil Count Eggman's plan. On the other hand, however, they were fascinated, as they

had never been backstage at a theatrical production and there was so much to see. Members

of Count Eggman's theater troupe hurried this way and that, too busy to even glance at the

children. Three very short men were carrying a large flat piece of wood, painted to look like a

living room. The two white-faced women were arranging flowers in a vase that from far away

appeared to be marble, but dose up looked more like cardboard. An important-looking man

with warts all over his face was adjusting enormous light fixtures. As the children peeked

onstage, they could see Count Eggman, in his fancy suit, declaiming some lines from the play,

just as the curtain carne down, controlled by a woman with very short hair who was pulling

on a long rope, attached to a pulley. Despite their fear, you see, the two older Hedges

were very interested in what was going on, and only wished that they were not involved in

any way.

As the curtain fell, Count Eggman strode offstage and looked at the children. "It's the end of

Act Two! Why aren't the orphans in their costumes?" he hissed to the two white faced women.

Then, as the audience broke into applause, his angry expression turned to one of joy, and he

walked back onstage. Gesturing to the short-haired woman to raise the curtain, he strode to

the exact center of the stage and took elaborate bows as the curtain carne up. He waved and

blew kisses to the audience as the curtain carne down again, and then his face once again

filled with anger." Intermission is only ten minutes," he said, "and then the children must

perform. Get them into costumes, quickly!"

Without a word the two white-faced women grabbed Tails and Amy by the wrists and

led them into a dressing room. The room was dusty but shiny, covered in mirrors and tiny

lights so the actors could see better to put on their makeup and wigs, and there were people

calling out to one another and laughing as they changed their clothes. One white-faced

woman yanked Amy's arms up and pulled her nightgown off over her head, and thrust a

dirty, lacy white dress at her to put on. Tails, meanwhile, had his pajamas removed by the

other white-faced woman, and was hurriedly stuffed into a blue sailor suit that itched and

made him look like a toddler.

"Isn't this exciting?" said a voice, and the children turned to see Justice Tikal Strauss, all dressed

up in her judge's robes and powdered wig. She was clutching a small book. "You children

look wonderful!"

"So do you," Tails said. "What's that book?"

"Why, those are my lines," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Count Eggman told me to bring a law book and read the real wedding ceremony, in order to make the play as realistic as possible. All _you_ have to say, Amy, is 'I do,' but I have to make quite a speech. This is going to be such

fun."

"You know what would be fun," Amy said carefully, "is if you changed your lines

around, just a little."

Tails face lit up. "Yes, Justice Tikal Strauss. Be creative. There's no reason to stick to the

legal ceremony. It's not as if it's a real wedding."

Justice Tikal Strauss frowned. "I don't know about that, children," she said. "I think it would be best to follow Count Eggman's instructions. After all, he's in charge."

"Justice Tikal Strauss!" a voice called. "Justice Tikal Strauss! Please report to the makeup artist!"

"Oh my word! I get to wear makeup." Justice Tikal Strauss had on a dreamy expression, as if

she were about to be crowned queen, instead of just having some powders and creams

smeared on her face. "Children, I must go. See you onstage, my dears!"

Justice Tikal Strauss ran off, leaving the children to finish changing into their costumes. One of

the white-faced women put a flowered headdress on Amy, who realized in horror that the

dress she had changed into was a bridal gown. The other woman put a sailor cap on Tails,

who gazed in one of the mirrors, astonished at how ugly he looked. His eyes met those of

Amy, who was looking in the mirror as well.

"What can we do?" Tails said quietly. "Pretend to be sick? Maybe they' d call off the

performance."

"Count Eggman would know what we were up to," Amy replied glumly.

"Act Three of _The Marvelous Marriage_ by Emang Con Gutm is about to begin!" a man with a

clipboard shouted. "Everyone, please, get in your places for Act Three!"

The actors rushed out of the room, and the white-faced women grabbed the children and

hustled them out after them. The backstage area was in complete pandemonium—a word

which here means "actors and stagehands running around attending to last-minute details."

The bald moongoose with the long nose hurried by the children, then stopped himself, looked at Amy in her wedding dress, and smirked.

"No funny stuff," he said to them, waggling a bony finger. "Remember, when you go out

there, just do exactly what you're supposed to do. Count Eggman will be holding his walkietalkie

during the entire act, and if you do even _one thing_ wrong, he'll be giving Sonic a call

up there in the tower."

"Yes, yes," Tails said bitterly. He was tired of being threatened in the same way, over and

over.

"You'd better do exactly as planned," the man said again.

"I'm sure they will," said a voice suddenly, and the children turned to see Mr. Silver Poe, dressed

very formally and accompanied by his wife. He smiled at the children and came over to shake

their hands. "Polly and I just wanted to tell you to break a leg."

"What?" Amy said, alarmed.

"That's a theater term," Mr. Silver Poe explained, "meaning 'good luck on tonight's performance.'

I'm glad that you children have adjusted to life with your new father and are participating in

family activities."

"Mr. Poe," Tails said quickly, "Amy and I have something to tell you. It's very

important."

"What is it?" Mr. Silver Poe said.

"Yes," said Count Eggman, "what is it you have to tell Mr. Silver Poe, children?"

Count Eggman had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and his shiny eyes glared at the

children meaningfully. In one hand, Amy and Tails could see, he held a walkie-talkie.

"Just that we appreciate all you've done for us, Mr. Poe," Tails said weakly. "That's all we

wanted to say."

"Of course, of course, Mr. Silver Poe said, patting him on the back." Well, Polly and I had better take our seats. Break a leg, Hedges!"

"I wish we _could_ break a leg," Tails whispered to Amy, and Mr. Silver Poe left.

"You will, soon enough," Count Eggman said, pushing the two children toward the stage.

Other actors were milling about, finding their places for Act Three, and Justice Tikal Strauss

was off in a corner, practicing her lines from her law book. Tails took a look around the

stage, wondering if anyone there could help. The bald moongoose with the long nose took Tails hand and led him to one side.

"You and I will stand _here_ for the duration of the act. That means the whole thing." "I

 _know_ what the word 'duration' means," Tails said.

"No nonsense," the bald man said. Tails watched his sister in her wedding gown take her

place next to Count Eggman's as the curtain rose. Tails heard applause from the audience as Act Three of _The Marvelous Marriage_ began.

It will be of no interest to you if I describe the action of this insipid—the word "insipid"

here means "dull and foolish"—play by Emang Con Gutm, because it was a dreadful play and of no

real importance to our story. Various actors and actresses performed very dull dialogue and

moved around the set, as Tails tried to make eye contact with them and see if they would

help. He soon realized that this play must have been chosen merely as an excuse for Eggman's evil plan, and not for its entertainment value, as he sensed the audience losing interest and moving around in their seats. Tails turned his attention to the audience to see whether any of them would notice that something was afoot, but the way the wart-faced man had arranged the lights prevented Tails from seeing the faces in the auditorium, and he could only make

out the dim outlines of the people in the audience. Count Eggman had a great number of very

long speeches, which he performed with elaborated gestures and racial expressions. No one

seemed to notice that he held a walkie-talkie the entire time.

Finally, Justice Tikal Strauss began speaking, and Tails saw that she was reading directly from the legal book. Her eyes were sparkling and her face flushed as she performed onstage for the first time, too stage struck to realize she was a part of Eggman's plan. She spoke on and on about Eggman and Amy caring for each other in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, and all of those things that are said to many people who decide, for one reason or another, to get married.

When she finished her speech, Justice Tikal Strauss turned to Count Eggman and asked, "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do," Count Eggman said, smiling. Tails saw Amy shudder.

"Do _you,"_ Justice Tikal Strauss said, turning to Amy, "take this man to be your lawfully

wedded husband?"

"I do," Amy said. Tails clenched his fists.

His little sister had said "I do" in the presence of a judge. Once she signed the official

document, the wedding was legally valid. And now, Tails could see that Justice Tikal Strauss was taking the document from one of the other actors and holding it out to Amy to sign.

"Don't move an inch," the bald mongoose muttered to Tails, and Tails thought of poor Sonic,

dangling at the top of the tower, and stood still as he watched Amy take a long quill pen

from Count Eggman's. Amy's eyes were wide as she looked down at the document, and her face was pale, and her left hand was trembling as she signed her name.

Chapter 13:

" _And_ now, ladies and gentlemen," Count Eggman said, stepping forward to address the

audience, "I have an announcement. There is no reason to continue tonight's performance, for

its purpose has been served. This has not been a scene of fiction. My marriage to Amy Hedge is perfectly legal, and now I am in control of her entire fortune."

There were gasps from the audience, and some of the actors looked at one another in

shock. Not everyone, apparently, had known about Eggman's plan. "That can't be!" Justice

Tikal Strauss cried.

"The marriage laws in this community are quite simple," Count Eggamn said. "The bride must say 'I do' in the presence of a judge like yourself, and sign an explanatory document. And all of you"—here Count Eggaman gestured out to the audience—"are witnesses."

"But Amy is only a child!" one of the actors said. "She's not old enough to marry."

"She is if her legal guardian agrees," Count Eggman said, "and in addition to being her

husband, I am her legal guardian."

"But that piece of paper is not an official document!" Justice Tikal Strauss said. "That's just a

stage prop!"

Count Eggman took the paper from Amy's hand and gave it to Justice Tikal Strauss. "I think if you look at it closely you will see it is an official document from City Hall."

Justice Tikal Strauss took the document in her hand and read it quickly. Then, closing her eyes, she sighed deeply and furrowed her brow, thinking hard. Tails watched her and wondered if this were the expression Justice Tikal Strauss had on her face whenever she was serving on the High Court. "You're right," she said finally, to Count Eggman, "this marriage, unfortunately, is completely legal. Amy said 'I do,' and signed her name here on this paper. Count Eggman, you are Amy's husband, and therefore in complete control of her estate."

"That can't be!" said a voice from the audience, and Tails recognized it as the voice of

Mr. Silver Poe. He ran up the stairs to the stage and took the document from Justice Tikal Strauss. "This is dreadful nonsense."

"I'm afraid this dreadful nonsense is the law," Justice Tikal Strauss said. Her eyes were filling up with tears. "I can't believe how easily I was tricked," she said. "I would never do anything to harm you children. _Never._ "

"You _were_ easily tricked," Count Eggman said, grinning, and the judge began to cry. "It was

child's play, winning this fortune. Now, if all of you will excuse me, my bride and I need to

go home for our wedding night."

"First let Sonic go!" Tails burst out. "You promised to let him go!"

"Where is Sonic?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

"He's all tied up at the moment," Count Eggman said, "if you will pardon a little joke." His

eyes shone as he pressed buttons on the walkie-talkie, and waited while the hookhanded fox

answered. "Hello? Yes, of course it's me, you idiot. Everything has gone according to plan.

Please remove Sonic from his cage and bring him directly to the theatre, hold him by the legs. Tails and Sonic have some chores to do before they go to bed." Count Eggman gave Tails a sharp look. "Are you satisfied now?" he asked.

"Yes," Tails said quietly. He wasn't satisfied at all, of course, but at least his baby brother

was no longer dangling from a tower, but he has to keep his promice. What about his little sister?

"Don't think you're so safe," the bald mongoose whispered to Tails. "Count Eggman will take care of you and your brother later. He doesn't want to do it in front of all these people." He did not have to explain to Tails what he meant by the phrase "take care of."

"Well, I'm not satisfied _at all,_ " Mr. Silver Poe said. "This is absolutely horrendous. This is

completely monstrous. This is financially dreadful."

"I'm afraid, however," Count Eggman said, "that it is legally binding. Tomorrow, Mr. Silver Poe, I shall come down to the bank and withdraw the complete Hedge fortune."

Mr. Silver Poe opened his mouth as if to say something, but began to cough instead. For several seconds he coughed into a handkerchief while everyone waited for him to speak. "I won't allow it," Mr. Silver Poe finally gasped, wiping his mouth. "I absolutely will not allow it."

"I'm afraid you have to," Count Eggman replied.

"I'm—I'm afraid Eggman is right," Justice Tikal Strauss said, through her tears. "This marriage is legally binding."

"Begging your pardon," Amy said suddenly, "but I think you may be wrong."

Everyone turned to look at the middle hedge orphan.

"What did you say, Countess?" Eggman said.

"I'm _not_ your countess," Amy said testily, a word which here means "in an extremely

annoyed tone." "At least, I don't _think_ I am."

"And why is that?" Count Eggman said.

"I did not sign the document in my own hand, as the law states," Amy said.

"What do you mean? We all saw you!" Count Eggman's eyebrow was beginning to rise in

anger.

"I'm afraid your husband is right, dear," Justice Tikal Strauss said sadly. "There's no use denying it. There are too many witnesses."

"Like most people," Amy said, "I am right handed. But I signed the document with my

left hand."

" _What.?_ " Count Eggman cried. He snatched the paper from Justice Tikal Strauss and looked down at it. His eyes were shining very bright. "You are a _liar!"_ he hissed at Amy.

"No she's not," Tails said excitedly. "I remember, because I watched her left hand

trembling as she signed her name! I am the only left handed person in the Hedge family"

"It is impossible to prove," Count Eggman said.

"If you like," Amy said, "I shall be happy to sign my name again, on a separate sheet of

paper, with my right hand and then with my left. Then we can see which signature the one on

the document most resembles."

"A small detail, like which hand you used to sign," Count Eggman said, "doesn't matter in the

least. "

"If you don't mind, sir," Mr. Silver Poe said, "I'd like Justice Tikal Strauss to make that decision."

Everyone looked at Justice Tikal Strauss, who was wiping away the last of her tears. "Let me

see," she said quietly, and closed her eyes again. She sighed deeply, and the Hedge orphans, and all who liked them, held their breath as Justice Tikal Strauss furrowed her brow,

thinking hard on the situation. Finally, she smiled. "If Amy is indeed right-handed," she said

carefully, "and she signed the document with her left hand, then it follows that the signature

does not fulfill the requirements of the nuptial laws. The law clearly states the document must

be signed in the bride's _own hand._ Therefore, we can conclude that this marriage is invalid.

Amy, you are _not_ a countess, and Count Eggman, you are _not_ in control of the Hedge

fortune."

"Hooray!" cried a voice from the audience, and several people applauded. Unless you are

a lawyer, it will probably strike you as odd that Count Eggman's plan was defeated by Amy

signing with her left hand instead of her right. But the law is an odd thing. For instance, one

country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A

certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far

from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders. Had

Amy signed the marriage contract with her right hand, the law would have made her a

miserable countess, but because she signed it with her left, she remained, to her relief, a

miserable orphan.

What was good news to Tails and his siblings, of course; was bad news to Count Eggman .

Nevertheless, he gave everyone a grim smile. "In that case," he said to Amy, pushing a

button on the walkie-talkie, "you will either marry me again, and correctly this time, or I

will—"

"Neepo!" Sonic's unmistakable voice rang out over Count Eggman's as he ran onstage

toward his siblings. The hook-handed fox ran behind him, his walkie talkie buzzing

and crackling. Count Eggman was too late.

"Sonic! You're safe!" Amy cried, and embraced him. Tails rushed over and the two

older Hedges fussed over the youngest one. "Somebody bring him something to eat,"

Amy said. "He must be very hungry after hanging in a tower window all that time."

"Cake!" Sonic shrieked.

 _"Argh!"_ Count Eggman roared. He began to pace back and forth like an animal in a cage,

pausing only to point a finger at Amy. "You may not be my wife," he said, "but you are still

my daughter, and—"

"Do you honestly think," Mr. Silver Poe said in an exasperated voice, "that I will allow you to

continue to care for these three children, after the treachery I have seen here tonight?"

"The orphans are mine," Count Eggman insisted, "and with me they shall stay. There is

nothing illegal about trying to marry someone."

"But there _is_ something illegal about dangling an infant out of a tower window," Justice

Tikal Strauss said indignantly. "You, Count Eggman, will go to jail, and the three children will live with me."

"Arrest him!" a voice said from the audience, and other people took up the cry.

"Send him to jail!"

"He's an evil man!"

"And give us our money back! It was a lousy play!"

Mr. Silver Poe took Count Eggman's arm and, after a brief eruption of coughs, announced in a harsh voice, "I hereby arrest you in the name of the law."

"Oh, Justice Tikal Strauss!" Amy said. "Did you really mean what you said? Can we really live

with you?"

"Of course I mean it," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I am very fond of you children, and I feel

responsible for your welfare."

"Can we use your library every day?" Amy asked.

"Can we work in the garden?" Tails asked.

"Cake!" Sonic shrieked again, and everyone laughed.

At this point in the story, I feel obliged to interrupt and give you one last warning. As I

said at the very beginning, the book you are holding in your hands does not have a happy

ending. It may arrear now that Count Eggman will go to jail and that the three Hedge

youngsters will live happily ever after with Justice Tikal Strauss, but it is not so. If you like, you may shut the book this instant and not read the unhappy ending that is to follow. You may spend the rest of your life believing that the Hedge triumphed over Count Eggman and lived the rest of their lives in the house and library of Justice Tikal Strauss, but that is not how the story goes. For as everyone was laughing at Sonic's cry for cake, the important-looking man with all the warts on his face was sneaking toward the controls for the lighting of the theater.

Quick as a wink, the man flicked the main switch so that all the lights went off and every

one was standing in darkness. Instantly, pandemonium ensued as everyone ran this way and

that, shouting at one another. Actors tripped over members of the audience. Members of the

audience tripped over theatrical props. Mr. Silver Poe grabbed his wife, thinking it was Count Eggman.

Amy grabbed Sonic and held him up as high as she could, so he wouldn't get hurt. But

Tails knew at once what had happened, and made his way carefully to where he

remembered the lights had been. When the play was being performed, Tails had watched the

light controls carefully, taking mental notes in case these devices carne in handy for an

invention. He was certain if he could find the switch she could turn it back on. His arms

stretched in front of him as if he were blind, Tails made his way across the stage, stepping

carefully around pieces of furniture and startled actors. In the darkness, Tails looked like a

ghost, his sailer uniform made him look out of place. Then, just as he had reached

the switch, Tails felt a hand on his shoulder. A figure leaned in to whisper into his ear.

"I'll get my hands on your fortune if it's the last thing I do," the voice hissed. "And when I

have it, I'll kill you and your siblings with my own two hands."

Tails gave a little cry of terror, but flicked the switch on. The entire theater was flooded

with light. Everyone blinked and looked around. Mr. Silver Poe let go of his wife. Amy put Sonic down. But nobody was touching Tails shoulder. Count Eggman was gone.

"Where did he go?" Mr. Silver Poe shouted. "Where did they all go?"

The Hedge youngsters looked around and saw that not only had Count Eggman vanished,

but his accomplices-the wart-faced man, the hook-handed man, the bald man with the long

nose, the enormous person who looked like neither a man nor a woman, and the two whitefaced women—had vanished along with him.

"They must have run outside," Amy said, "while it was still dark."

Mr. Silver Poe led the way outside, and Justice Tikal Strauss and the children followed. Way, way down the block, they could see a long black car driving away into the night. Maybe it

contained Count Eggman and his associates. Maybe it didn't. But in any case, it turned a corner and disappeared into the dark city as the children watched without a word.

"Blast it," Mr. Silver Poe said. "They're gone. But don't worry, children, we'll catch them. I'm

going to go call the police immediately."

Tails, Amy and Sonic looked at one another and knew that it wasn't as simple as Mr.

Silver Poe said. Count Eggman would take care to stay out of sight as he planned his next move. He was far too clever to be captured by the likes of Mr. Silver Poe.

"Well, let's go home, children," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "We can worry about this in the

morning, when I've fixed you a good breakfast."

Mr. Silver Poe coughed. "Wait a minute," he said, looking down at the floor. "I'm sorry to tell

you this, children, but I cannot allow you to be raised by someone who is not a relative."

"What?" Tails cried. "After all Justice Tikal Strauss has done for us?"

"We never would have figured out Count Eggman's plan without her and her library," Amy

said. "Without Justice Tikal Strauss, we would have lost our lives."

"That may be so," Mr. Silver Poe said, "and I thank Justice Tikal Strauss for her generosity, but your parents' will is very specific. You must be adopted by a relative. Tonight you will stay with me in my home, and tomorrow I shall go to the bank and figure out what to do with you. I'm sorry, but that is the way it is."

The children looked at Justice Tikal Strauss, who sighed heavily and hugged each of the

Hedge youngsters in turn. "Mr. Silver Poe is right," she said sadly. "He must respect your

parents' wishes. Don't you want to do what your parents wanted, children?"

Tails, Amy and Sonic pictured their loving parents, and wished more than ever that the

fire had not occurred. Never, never had they felt so alone. They wanted very badly to live

with this kind and generous woman, but they knew that it simply could not be done. "I guess

you're right, Justice Tikal Strauss," Amy said finally. "We will miss you very much."

"I will miss you, too," she said, and her eyes filled with tears once more. Then they each

gave Justice Tikal Strauss one last embrace, and followed Mr. and Mrs. Poe to their car. The

Hedge orphans piled into the backseat, and peered out the back window at Justice

Tikal Strauss, who was crying and waving to them. Ahead of them were the darkened streets,

where Count Eggman had escaped to plan more treachery. Behind them was the kind judge, who had taken such an interest in the three children. To Tails, Amy and Sonic, it seemed that

Mr. Silver Poe and the law had made the incorrect decision to take them away from the possibility of a happy life with Justice Tikal Strauss and toward an unknown fate with some unknown relative.

They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't

understand it doesn't mean it isn't so. The Hedges bunched up together against the cold

night air, and kept waving out the back window. The car drove farther and farther away, until

Justice Tikal Strauss was merely a speck in the darkness, and it seemed to the children that they were moving in an aberrant—the word "aberrant" here means "very, very wrong, and causing

much grief"—direction.


	3. Reptile Room

For Cream-

My love for you shall live forever.

You, however, did not

The stretch of road that leads out of the city,

past Hazy Harbor and into the town of Tedia, is

perhaps the most unpleasant in the world. It is

called Lousy Lane. Lousy Lane runs through

fields that are a sickly gray color, in which a

handful of scraggly trees produce apples so sour

that one only has to look at them to feel ill.

Lousy Lane traverses the Grim River, a body

of water that is nine-tenths mud and that con-

tains extremely unnerving fish, and it encircles

a horseradish factory, so the entire area smells

bitter and strong.

I am sorry to tell you that this story begins

with the Hedge orphans traveling along this most displeasing road, and that from this moment on, the story only gets worse. Of all the people in the world who have miserable lives and, as I'm sure you know, there are quite a

few the Hedge youngsters take the cake,

a phrase which here means that more horrible

things have happened to them than just about

anybody. Their misfortune began with an enor-

mous fire that destroyed their home and killed

both their loving parents, which is enough sad-

ness to last anyone a lifetime, but in the case

of these three children it was only the bad

beginning. After the fire, the siblings were sent

to live with a distant relative named Count Eggman,

a terrible and greedy hedgehog. The Hedge parents had left behind an enormous

fortune, which would go to the children when Tails came of age, and Count Eggman was so obsessed with getting his filthy hands on the money that he hatched a

devious plan that gives me nightmares to this day. He was caught just in

time, but he escaped and vowed to get ahold of the Hedge fortune sometime in the

future. Tails. Amy and Sonic still had night-

mares about Count Eggman's shiny, shiny eyes,

and about his one scraggly eyebrow, and most

of all about the tattoo of an eye he had on his

ankle. It seemed like that eye was watching the

Hedge orphans wherever they went.

So I must tell you that if you have opened this

book in the hope of finding out that the chil-

dren lived happily ever after, you might as well

shut it and read something else. Because Tails, Amy and Sonic, sitting in a small, cramped car

and staring out the windows at Lousy Lane,

were heading toward even more misery and

woe. The Grim River and the horseradish fac-

tory were only the first of a sequence of tragic

and unpleasant episodes that bring a frown to

my face and a tear to my eye whenever I think

about them.

The driver of the car was Mr. Silver Poe, a family

friend who worked at a bank and always had

a cough. He was in charge of overseeing the orphans' affairs, so it was he who

decided that the children would be placed in the care of a

distant relative in the country after all the

unpleasantness with Count Eggman.

"I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable," Mr. Silver Poe

said, coughing into a white handkerchief, "but

this new car of mine doesn't fit too many peo-

ple. We couldn't even fit any of your suitcases.

In a week or so I'll drive back here and bring

them to you."

"Thank you," said Tails, who at fourteen was

the oldest of the Hedge children. Anyone

who knew Tails well could see that his mind

was not really on what Mr. Silver Poe was saying,

because his long bangs was tied up in a ribbon to

keep it out of his eyes, it made him look like a girl but he didn't care. Tails was an inventor, and when he was thinking up inventions he liked to tie his bangs up this way. It helped him think clearly about the various gears, wires, and ropes involved in most of his creations.

"After living so long in the city," Mr. Silver Poe continued, "I think you will find the countryside to be a pleasant change. Oh, here is the turn. We're almost here."

"Good," Amy said quietly. Amy, like many

people on car rides, was very bored, and she was

sad not to have a book with her. Amy loved to

read, and at approximately twelve years of age

had read more books than many people read in

their whole lives. Sometimes she read well into

the night, and in the morning could be found

fast asleep, with a book in her hand and her glasses still on.

"I think you'll like Dr. Knuckles, too,"

Mr. Silver Poe said. "He has traveled a great deal, so

he has plenty of stories to tell. I've heard his

house is filled with things he's brought from all

the places he's been."

"Bax!" Sonic shrieked. Sonic, the youngest

of the Hedge orphans, often talked like this,

as infants tend to do. In fact, besides biting

things with his four very sharp teeth, and running as fast as a dog, speaking

in fragments was how Sonic spent most of his

time. It was often difficult to tell what he meant to say. At this moment he probably meant something along the lines of "I'm nervous about meeting a new relative." All three children were.

"How exactly is Dr. Knuckles related to

us?" Amy asked.

"Dr. Knuckles is — let me see — your late

father's cousin's wife's brother. I think that's

right. He's a scientist of some sort, and receives

a great deal of money from the government."

As a banker, Mr. Silver Poe was always interested in

money.

"What should we call him?" Amy asked.

"You should call him Dr. Knuckles," Mr. Silver Poe replied, "unless he tells you to call him Knuckles. Both his first and last names are Knuckles, so it doesn't really make much difference."

"His name is Knuckles Knuckles?"

Amy said, smiling.

"Yes, and I'm sure he's very sensitive about

that, so don't ridicule him," Mr. Silver Poe said, coughing again into his handkerchief. "'Ridicule' means 'tease.'"

Amy sighed. "I know what 'ridicule' means,"

she said. She did not add that of course she also knew not to make fun of someone's name. Occasionally, people thought that because the orphans were unforunate, they were also dim-witted.

Tails sighed too, and took the ribbon out

of his hair, wich was a joke gift from a friend, a few days before the fire. He had been trying to think up an invention that would block the smell of horseradish from reaching one's nose, but he was too nervous about meeting Dr. Knuckles to focus on it. "Do you know what sort of scientist he is?" he asked. He was thinking Dr. Knuckles might have a laboratory that would be of use to his.

"I'm afraid not," Mr. Silver Poe admitted. "I've

been very busy making the arrangements for

you three, and I didn't have much time for chit-

chat. Oh, here's the driveway. We've arrived."

Mr. Silver Poe pulled the car up a steep gravel drive-

way and toward an enormous stone house. The house had a square front door made of dark

wood, with several columns marking the front

porch. To each side of the door were lights in

the shapes of torches, which were brightly lit

even though it was morning. Above the front

door, the house had rows and rows of square

windows, most of which were open to let in the

breeze. But in front of the house was what was

truly unusual: a vast, well-kept lawn, dotted

with long, thin shrubs in remarkable shapes. As

Mr. Silver Poe's car came to a halt, the Hedges

could see that the shrubs had been trimmed so

as to look like snakes. Each hedge was a different kind of serpent, some long, some short, some with their tongues out and some with their

mouths open, showing green, fearsome teeth.

They were quite eerie, and Tails, Amy and Sonic

were a bit hesitant about walking beside

them on their way up to the house.

Mr. Silver Poe, who led the way, didn't seem to

notice the hedges at all, possibly because he was

busy coaching the children on how to behave

"Now, Amy, don't ask too many questions right

away. Tails, what happened to the ribbon in

your hair? I thought you looked very distin-

guished in it. And somebody please make sure

Sonic doesn't bite Dr. Knuckles or break anything when he runs. That

wouldn't be a good first impression."

Mr. Silver Poe stepped up to the door and rang a

doorbell that was one of the loudest the children had ever heard. After a moment's pause, they could hear approaching footsteps, and

Tails, Amy and Sonic all looked at one another. They had no way of knowing, of

course, that very soon there would be more mis-fortune within their unlucky family, but they nevertheless felt uneasy. Would Dr. Knuckles

be a kind person? they wondered. Would he at least

be better than Count Eggman? Could he possibly be

worse?

The door creaked open slowly, and the

Hedge orphans held their breath as they

peered into the dark entryway. They saw a dark

burgundy carpet that lay on the floor. They saw a stained-glass light fixture that dangled from

the ceiling. They saw a large oil painting of two

snakes entwined together that hung on the wall.

But where was Dr. Knuckles?

"Hello?" Mr. Silver Poe called out. "Hello?"

"Hello hello hello!" a loud voice boomed

out, and from behind the door stepped a short,

chubby red Echidna, with sky gloves,with a round red face, and looks very strong. "I am your

Uncle Knuckles, and this is really perfect timing!

I just finished making a coconut cream cake!"

Chapter 2

"Doesn't Sonic like coconut?" Uncle Knuckles

asked. He, Mr. Silver Poe, and the Hedge orphans

were all sitting around a bright green table, each

with a slice of Uncle Knuckles's cake. Both the

kitchen and the cake were still warm from bak-

ing. The cake was a magnificent

thing, rich and creamy with

the perfect amount of

coconut. Tails, Amy

Uncle Knuckles were almost

finished with their pieces,

but Mr. Silver Poe and Sonic had

taken only one small bite each.

"To tell you the truth," Tails said, "Sonic

doesn't really like anything soft to eat. He

prefers very hard food."

"How unusual for a baby," Uncle Knuckles said,

"but not at all unusual for many snakes. The

Barbary Chewer, for example, is a snake that

must have something in its mouth at all times,

otherwise it begins to eat its own mouth. Very

difficult to keep in captivity. Would Sonic perhaps like a raw carrot? That's plenty hard."

"A raw carrot would be perfect, Dr. Knuckles" Amy replied.

The children's new legal guardian got up and

walked toward the refrigerator, but then turned

around and wagged a finger at Amy. "None of

that 'Dr. Knuckles' stuff," he said. "That's

way too stuffy for me. Call me Uncle Knuckles!

Why, my fellow herpetologists don't even call

me Dr. Knuckles."

"What are herpetologists?" Tails asked.

"What do they call you?" Amy asked.

"Children, children," Mr. Silver Poe said sternly.

"Not so many questions."

Uncle Knuckles smiled at the orphans. "That's

quite all right," he said. "Questions show an

inquisitive mind. The word 'inquisitive

means — "

"We know what it means," Amy said. "'Full

of questions.'"

"Well, if you know what that means," Uncle

Knuckles said, handing a large carrot to Sonic,

"then you should know what herpetology is."

"It's the study of something," Amy said.

"Whenever a word has 'ology', it's the study of

Something, I don't remember what it is."

"Snakes!" Uncle Knuckles cried. "Snakes,

snakes, snakes! That's what I study! I love

snakes, all kinds, and I circle the globe looking

for different kinds to study here in my laboratory! Isn't that interesting?"

"That is interesting," Tails said, "very interesting. But isn't it dangerous?"

"Not if you know the facts," Uncle Knuckles

said. "Mr. Silver Poe, would you like a raw carrot as

well? You've scarcely touched your cake."

Mr. Silver Poe turned red, and coughed into his handkerchief for quite some time before replying, "No, thank you, Dr. Knuckles."

Uncle Knuckles winked at the children. "If you

like, you may call me Uncle Knuckles as well, Mr. Silver Poe."

"Thank you, Uncle Knuckles," Mr. Silver Poe said stiffly. "Now,I have a question, if you don't mind. You mentioned that you circle the globe. Is there someone who will come and take care of the children while you are out collecting specimens?"

"We're old enough to stay by ourselves,"

Tails said quickly, but inside he was not so sure.

Uncle Knuckles's line of work did sound interesting, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to stay alone with his siblings, in a house full of snakes.

"I wouldn't hear of it," Uncle Knuckles said.

"You three must come with me. In ten days we leave for Peru, and I want you children right there in the jungle with me."

"Really?" Amy said. Behind her glasses, her

eyes were shining with excitement. "You'd really

take us to Peru with you?"

"I will be glad to have your help," Uncle

Knuckles said, reaching over to take a bite of

Sonic's piece of cake. "Julie Su, my top assistant,

left an unexpected letter of resignation for me

just yesterday. There's a man named Stephano

whom I have hired to take her place, but he won't arrive for a week or so, so I am way behind on preparations for the expedition. Somebody has to make sure all the snake traps are working,

so I don't hurt any of our specimens. Somebody

has to read up on the terrain of Peru so we can

navigate through the jungle without any trouble.

Somebody has to slice an enormous length

of rope into small, workable pieces, and catch the most commen snake in Peru the extremly fast dragonsnakes, which are very playfull, and not poisonus."

"I'm interested in mechanics," Tails said, licking his fork, "so I would be happy to learn about snake traps."

"I find guidebooks fascinating," Amy said,

wiping her mouth with a napkin, "so I would

love to read up on Peruvian terrain."

"Eojip! Canchila!" Sonic shrieked, taking a bite of carrot. He probably meant something along the lines of "I would be thrilled to bite an enormous

length of rope into small, workable pieces! And I would be honered to catch the very fast dragonsnakes, I hope they are not poisonous as you say they are, and I hope they are playfull."

"Wonderful!" Uncle Knuckles cried. "I'm glad

you have such enthusiasm. It will make it easier to do without Julie Su. It was very strange, her leaving like that. I was unlucky to lose her."

Uncle Knuckles's face clouded over, a phrase which

here means "took on a slightly gloomy look

as Uncle Knuckles thought about his bad luck,"

although if Uncle Knuckles had known what bad

luck was soon to come, he wouldn't have wasted

a moment thinking about Julie Su. I wish — and

I'm sure you wish as well — that we could go

back in time and warn him, but we can't, and

that is that. Uncle Knuckles seemed to think that

was that as well, as he shook his head and

smiled, clearing his brain of troubling thoughts.

"Well, we'd better get started. No time like the

present, I always say. Why don't you show Mr. Silver Poe to his car, and then I'll show you to the Reptile Room."

The three Hedge children, who had been

so anxious when they had walked through the

snake-shaped hedges the first time, raced confidently through them now as they escorted Mr. Silver Poe to his automobile.

"Now, children," Mr. Silver Poe said, coughing into

his handkerchief, "I will be back here in about a

week with your luggage and to make sure every-

thing is all right. I know that Dr. Knuckles might seem a bit intimidating to you, but I'm sure in time you will get used to — "

"He doesn't seem intimidating at all," Amy

interrupted. "He seems very easy to get along

with."

"I cant wait to see the Reptile Room," Tails

said excitedly.

"Meeka!" Sonic said, which probably meant

"Good-bye, Mr. Silver Poe. Thank you for driving us."

"Well, good-bye," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Remember,

it is just a short drive here from the city, so

please contact me or anyone else at Mulctuary

Money Management if you have any trouble.

See you soon." He gave the orphans an awkward little wave with his handkerchief, got into his small car, and drove back down the steep gravel driveway onto Lousy Lane. Tails, Amy, and Sonic waved back, hoping that Mr. Silver Poe would remember to roll up the car windows so the stench of horseradish would not be too unbearable.

"Bambini!" Uncle Knuckles cried out from the

front door. "Come along, bambini!"

The Hedge orphans raced back through

the hedges to where their new guardian was

waiting for them. "Tails, Uncle Knuckles," Tails said. "My name is Tails, my real name is Miles, my sisters' is Amy, and Sonic is our baby brother. None of us is

named Bambini."

"'Bambini' is the Italian word for 'children,'"

Uncle Knuckles explained. "I had a sudden urge to speak a little Italian. I'm so excited to have you three here with me, you're lucky I'm not speaking gibberish."

"Have you never had any children of your

own?" Tails asked.

"I'm afraid not," Uncle Knuckles said. "I always

meant to find a wife and start a family, but it just

kept slipping my mind. Shall I show you the

Reptile Room?"

"Yes, please," Amy said.

Uncle Knuckles led them past the painting of

snakes in the entryway into a large room with a

grand staircase and very, very high ceilings.

"Your rooms will be up there," Uncle Knuckles

said, gesturing up the stairs. "You can each

choose whatever room you like and move the

furniture around to suit your taste. I understand

that Mr. Silver Poe has to bring your luggage later in

that puny car of his, so please make a list of anything you might need and we'll go into town tomorrow and buy it so you don't have to spend the next few days in the same underwear."

"Do we really each get our own room?" Tails

asked.

"Of course," Uncle Knuckles said. "You don't

think I'd coop you all up in one room when I

have this enormous house, do you? What sort of

person would do that?"

"Count Eggman did," Amy said.

"Oh, that's right, Mr. Silver Poe told me," Uncle

Knukles said, grimacing as if he had just tasted

something terrible. "Count Eggman sounds like an

awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday, I hope scorpians, which I have some knowledge of. Wouldn't that be satisfying? Oh, well, here we are, the Reptile Room."

Uncle Knuckles had reached a very tall wooden

door with a large doorknob right in the middle

of it. It was so high up that he had to stand on

his tiptoes to open it. When it swung open on

its creaky hinges, the Hedge orphans all

gasped in astonishment and delight at the room

they saw.

The Reptile Room was made entirely out of

glass, with bright, clear glass walls and a high

glass ceiling that rose up to a point like the

inside of a cathedral. Outside the walls was a

bright green field of grasses and shrubs which

was of course perfectly visible through the

transparent walls, so standing in the Reptile

Room was like being inside and outside at

the same time. But as remarkable as the room

itself was, what was inside the Reptile Room

was much more exciting. Reptiles, non - Mobian, of course,

were lined up in locked metal cages that sat on

wooden tables in four neat rows all the way

down the room. There were all sorts of snakes,

naturally, but there were also lizards, toads, and

assorted other animals that the children had

never seen before, not even in pictures, or at the

zoo. There was a very fat toad with two wings

coming out of its back, and a two-headed lizard

that had bright yellow stripes on its belly. There

was a snake that had three mouths, one on top

of the other, and another that seemed to have

no mouth at all. There was a lizard that looked

like an owl, with wide eyes that gazed at them from the log on which it was perched in its cage,

and a toad that looked just like a church, com-

plete with stained-glass eyes. And there was

a cage with a white cloth on top of it, so you

couldn't see what was inside at all. The children

walked down the aisles of cages, peering into

each one in amazed silence. Some of the crea-

tures looked friendly, and some of them looked

scary, but all of them looked fascinating, and the

Hedges took a long, careful look at each one,

with Amy holding Sonic up so he could see.

The orphans were so interested in the cages

that they didn't even notice what was at the far

end of the Reptile Room until they had walked

the length of each aisle, but once they reached

the far end they gasped in astonishment and

delight once more. For here, at the end of the

rows and rows of cages, were rows and rows of

bookshelves, each one stuffed with books of dif-

ferent sizes and shapes, with a cluster of tables,

chairs, and reading lamps in one corner. I'm sure

you remember that the Hedge children's parents had an enormous collection of books, which the orphans remembered fondly and

missed dreadfully, and since the terrible fire, the

children were always delighted to meet some-

one who loved books as much as they did.

Tails, Amy and Sonic examined the books

as carefully as they had the reptile cages, and

realized immediately that most of the books

were about snakes and other reptiles. It seemed

as if every book written on reptiles, from An

Introduction to Large Lizards to The Care and

Feeding of the Androgynous Cobra, were lined up

on the shelves, and all three children, Amy

especially, looked forward to reading up on the

creatures in the Reptile Room.

"This is an amazing place," Tails said finally, breaking the long silence.

"Thank you," Uncle Knuckles said. "It's taken

me a lifetime to put together."

"And are we really allowed to come inside

here?" Amy asked.

'Allowed?" Uncle Knuckles repeated. "Of course not! You are implored to come inside here, my boy- I mean girl. Starting first thing tomorrow morning, all

of us must be here every day in preparation for

the expedition to Peru. I will clear off one of

those tables for you, Tails, to work on the traps.

Amy, I expect you to read all of the books

about Peru that I have, and make careful notes.

And Sonic can sit on the floor and bite rope, and I could set free a few of my very fast dragonsnakes, for him to practice catching, to remind you they are not poisonus, they are very playfull.

We will work all day until suppertime, and after

supper we will go to the movies. Are there any

objections?"

Tails, Amy and Sonic looked at one another

and grinned. Any objections'? The Hedge

orphans had just been living with Count Eggman,

who had made them chop wood and clean up

after his drunken guests, while plotting to steal

their fortune. Uncle Knuckles had just described

a delightful way to spend one's time, and the

children smiled at him eagerly. Of course there

would be no objections. Tails, Amy and Sonic gazed at the Reptile Room and envisioned an end to their troubles as they lived their lives under Uncle Knuckles care. They were wrong, of course, about their misery being over, but for the moment the three siblings were

hopeful, excited, and happy.

"No, no, no," Sonic cried out, in apparent

answer to Uncle Knuckles question.

"Good, good, good," Uncle Knuckles said, smiling. "Now, let's go figure out whose room is whose."

"Uncle Knuckles?" Amy asked shyly. "I just

have one question."

"What is that?" Uncle Knuckles said.

"What's in that cage with the cloth on top

of it?"

Uncle Knuckles looked at the cage, and then at

the children. His face lit up with a smile of pure

joy. "That, my dears, is a new snake which I

brought over from my last journey. Julie Su and

myself are the only people to have seen it. Next

month I will present it to the Herpetological

Society as a new discovery, but in the meantime

I will allow you to look at it. Gather 'round."

The Hedge orphans followed Uncle

Knuckles to the cloth-covered cage, and with a

flourish — the word "flourish" here means "a

sweeping gesture, often used to show off — he

swooped the cloth off the cage. Inside was a

large black snake, as dark as a coal mine and

as thick as a sewer pipe, it's colour was almost the same as count Eggman, but Eggman was much darker, looking right at the orphans with shiny green eyes. With the cloth off its cage, the snake began to uncoil itself and

slither around its home.

"Because I discovered it," Uncle Knuckles said,

"I got to name it."

"What is it called?" Tails asked.

"The Incredibly Deadly Viper," Uncle

Knuckles replied, and at that moment something

happened which I'm sure will interest you. With

one flick of its tail, the snake unlatched the door

of its cage and slithered out onto the table, and

before Uncle Knuckles or any of the Hedge

orphans could say anything, it opened its mouth

and bit Sonic right on the chin.

CHAPTER 3

I am very, very sorry to leave you hanging  
like that, but as I was writing the tale of the  
Hedge orphans, I happened to look at the  
clock and realized I was running late for a formal  
dinner party given by a friend of mine, Madame  
diLustro. Madame diLustro is a good friend, an  
excellent detective, and a fine cook, but she flies  
into a rage if you arrive even five minutes later  
than her invitation states, so you understand  
that I had to dash off. You must have thought,  
at the end of the previous chapter, that Sonic  
was dead and that this was the terrible thing that  
happened to the Hedges at Uncle Knuckles'  
house, but I promise you Sonic survives this

particular episode. It is Uncle Knuckles, unfortu-  
nately, who will be dead, but not yet.

As the fangs of the Incredibly Deadly Viper  
closed on Sonic's chin, Tails and Amy  
watched in horror as Sonic's little eyes closed  
and his face grew quiet. Then, moving as sud-  
denly as the snake, Sonic smiled brightly,  
opened his mouth, and bit the Incredibly  
Deadly Viper right on its tiny, scaled nose. The  
snake let go of his chin, and Tails and Amy  
could see that it had left barely a mark. The two  
older Hedge siblings looked at Uncle  
Knuckles, and Uncle Knuckles looked back at them  
and laughed. His loud laughter bounced off the  
glass walls of the Reptile Room.

"Uncle Knuckles, what can we do?" Amy said  
in despair.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my dears," Uncle Knuckles said,  
wiping his eyes with his hands, which I may have forgot to mention had knuckles the size of walnuts. "You must be  
very frightened. But the Incredibly Deadly  
Viper is one of the least dangerous and most friendly creatures in the animal kingdom. Sonic  
has nothing to worry about, and neither do you."

Amy looked at her baby brother, who was still  
in her arms, as he playfully gave the Incredibly  
Deadly Viper a big hug around its thick body,  
and he realized Uncle Knuckles must be telling  
the truth. "But then why is it called the  
Incredibly Deadly Viper?"

Uncle Knuckles laughed again. "It's a mis-  
nomer," he said, using a word which here means  
"a very wrong name." "Because I discovered it,  
I got to name it, remember? Don't tell anyone  
about the Incredibly Deadly Viper, because I'm  
going to present it to the Herpetological Society  
and give them a good scare before explain-  
ing that the snake is completely harmless!  
Lord knows they've teased me many times,  
because of my name. 'Hello hello, Knuckles Knuckles,' they say. 'How are you how are  
you, Knuckles Knuckles?', and DON'T get me started on what they say about my own Knuckles. But at this  
year's conference I'm going to get back at them with this prank." Uncle Knuckles drew himself up to his full height and began talking in a silly, scientific voice. "'Colleagues,' I'll say, I would like to introduce to you a new species, the Incredibly Deadly Viper, which I found in the southwest forest of Aus — my God! It's escaped!'  
And then, when all my fellow herpetologists  
have jumped up on chairs and tables and are  
shrieking in fear, I'll tell them that the snake  
wouldn't hurt a fly! Won't that be hysterical?"

Tails and Amy looked at each other, and  
then began laughing, half in relief that their brother was unharmed, and half with amusement,  
because they thought Uncle Knuckles' prank was  
a good one.

Amy put Sonic down on the floor, and the  
Incredibly Deadly Viper followed, wriggling its  
tail affectionately around Sonic, the way you  
might put your arm around someone of whom  
you were fond of.

"Are there any snakes in this room that are  
dangerous?" Amy asked.

"Of course," Uncle Knuckles said. "You can't  
study snakes for forty years without encountering some dangerous ones. I have a whole cabinet of venom samples from every poisonous snake known to people, so I can study the ways in which these dangerous snakes work. There is a snake in this room whose venom is so deadly that your heart would stop before you even knew he'd bitten you. There is a snake who can open her mouth so wide she could swallow all  
of us, together, in one gulp. There is a pair of  
snakes who have learned to drive a car so recklessly that they would run you over in the street  
and never stop to apologize. But all of these  
snakes are in cages with much sturdier locks,  
and all of them can be handled safely when one  
has studied them enough. I promise that if you  
take time to learn the facts, no harm will come  
to you here in the Reptile Room."

There is a type of situation, which occurs  
all too often and which is occurring at this point  
in the story of the Hedge orphans, called "dramatic irony." Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you  
were in a restaurant and said out loud, "I can't  
wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered," and there  
were people around who knew that the veal  
marsala was poisoned and that you would die as  
soon as you took a bite, your situation would be  
one of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a cruel  
occurrence, one that is almost always upsetting,  
and I'm sorry to have it appear in this story, but  
Tails, Amy and Sonic have such unfortunate  
lives that it was only a matter of time before dra-  
matic irony would rear its ugly head.

As you and I listen to Uncle Knuckles tell the  
three Hedge orphans that no harm will ever  
come to them in the Reptile Room, we should  
be experiencing the strange feeling that accom-  
panies the arrival of dramatic irony. This feel-  
ing is not unlike the sinking in one's stomach when one is in an elevator that suddenly goes  
down, or when you are snug in bed and your  
closet door suddenly creaks open to reveal the  
person who has been hiding there. For no mat-  
ter how safe and happy the three children felt,  
no matter how comforting Uncle Knuckles' words  
were, you and I know that soon Uncle Knuckles'  
will be dead and the Hedges will be miser-  
able once again.

During the week that followed, however, the  
Heges had a wonderful time in their new  
home. Each morning, they woke up and dressed  
in the privacy of their very own rooms, which  
they had chosen and decorated to their liking.  
Tails had chosen a room that had an enormous  
window looking out onto the snake-shaped  
hedges on the front lawn. He thought such a  
view might inspire him when he was inventing  
things. Uncle Knuckles had allowed him to tack up  
large pieces of white paper on each wall, so he  
could sketch out his ideas, even if they came  
to him in the middle of the night. Amy had  
chosen a room with a cozy alcove in it — the  
word "alcove" here means "a very, very small  
nook just perfect for sitting and reading." With  
Uncle Knuckles' permission, she had carried up a  
large cushioned chair from the living room and  
placed it right in the alcove, under a heavy silver coloured  
reading lamp. Each night, rather than reading  
in bed, she would curl himself in the chair with  
a book from Uncle Knuckles library, sometimes  
until morning. Sonic had chosen a room right  
between Tails' and Amy's, and filled it with  
small, hard objects from all over the house, so  
he could bite them when he felt like it. There  
were also assorted toys for the Incredibly  
Deadly Viper so the two of them could play  
together whenever they wanted, within reason. Also Uncle Knuckles, jokingly gave him a giant hamster wheel, that was given to him some years ago, but Sonic loved it so much that he ran on it whenever he felt like it.

But where the Hedge orphans most liked  
to be was the Reptile Room. Each morning,  
after breakfast, they would join Uncle Knuckles,  
who would have already started work on the  
upcoming expedition. Tails sat at a table with  
the ropes, gears, and cages that made up the different snake traps, learning how they worked,  
repairing them if they were broken, and occa-  
sionally making improvements to make the  
traps more comfortable for the snakes on their  
long journey from Peru to Uncle Knuckles house.  
Amy sat nearby, reading the books on Peru  
Uncle Knuckles had and taking notes on a pad of  
paper so they could refer to them later. And  
Sonic sat on the floor, biting a long rope into  
shorter pieces with great enthusiasm, or even racing with the snakes. But what  
the Hedge youngsters liked best was learn-  
ing all about the reptiles from Uncle Knuckles. As  
they worked, he would show them the Alaskan  
Cow Lizard, a long green creature that produced  
delicious milk. They met the Dissonant Toad,  
which could imitate human speech in a gravelly  
voice. Uncle Knuckles taught them how to handle  
the Inky Newt without getting its black dye  
all over their fingers, and how to tell when the  
Irascible Python was grumpy and best left  
alone. He taught them not to give the Green  
Gimlet Toad too much water, and to never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian  
Wolfsnake near a typewriter.

While he was telling them about the different  
reptiles, Uncle Knuckles would often segue —  
a word which here means "let the conversation  
veer off — to stories from his travels, describing  
the men, snakes, women, toads, children, and  
lizards he'd met on his journeys. And before too  
long, the Hedge orphans were telling Uncle  
Knuckles all about their own lives, eventually talking about their parents and how much they  
missed them. Uncle Knuckles was as interested in  
the Hedges' stories as they were in his, and  
sometimes they got to talking so long they  
scarcely had time to gobble down dinner before  
cramming themselves into Uncle Knuckles tiny  
jeep and heading to the movies.

One morning, however, when the three children finished their breakfast and went into the  
Reptile Room, they found not Uncle Knuckles, but  
a note from him. The note read as follows:

Dear Bambini,

I have gone into town to buy a few last things we  
need for the expedition: Peruvian wasp repellent,  
toothbrushes, canned peaches, and a fireproof  
canoe. It will take a while to find the peaches, so  
don't expect me back until dinnertime.

Stephano, Julie Su s replacement, will arrive  
today by taxi. Please make him feel welcome.  
As you know, it is only two days until the expe-  
dition, so please work very hard today.

Your giddy uncle,  
Knuckles

"What does 'giddy' mean?" Tails asked,  
when they had finished reading the note.

'"Dizzy and excited,'" Amy said, having  
learned the word from a collection of poetry  
she'd read in first grade. "I guess he means ex-  
cited about Peru. Or maybe he's excited about  
having a new assistant."

"Or maybe he's excited about us," Tails said.

"Kindal!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant "Or maybe he's excited about all these  
things."

"I'm a little giddy myself," Amy said. "It's  
really fun to live with Uncle Knuckles."

"It certainly is," Tails agreed. "After the fire,  
I thought I would never be happy again. But our  
time here has been wonderful."

"I still miss our parents, though," Amy said.  
"No matter how nice Uncle Knuckles is, I wish we  
still lived in our real home."

"Of course," Tails said quickly. He paused,  
and slowly said out loud something she had  
been thinking about for the past few days. "I  
think we'll always miss our parents. But I think  
we can miss them without being miserable all  
the time. After all, they wouldn't want us to be  
miserable."

"Remember that time," Amy said wistfully,  
"when we were bored one rainy afternoon, and  
all of us painted our toenails bright red?"

"Yes," Amy said, grinning, "and I spilled  
some on the yellow chair."

"Archo!" Sonic said quietly, which probably  
meant something like "And the stain never really  
came out." The Hedge orphans smiled at  
each other and, without a word, began to do the  
day's work. For the rest of the morning they  
worked quietly and steadily, realizing that their  
contentment here at Uncle Knuckles' house did  
not erase their parents' death, not at all, but at  
least it made them feel better after feeling so  
sad, for so long.

It is unfortunate, of course, that this quiet  
happy moment was the last one the children  
would have for quite some time, but there is  
nothing anyone can do about it now. Just when  
the Hedges were beginning to think about  
lunch, they heard a car pull up in front of the  
house and toot its horn. To the children it sig-  
naled the arrival of Stephano. To us it should  
signal the beginning of more misery.

"I expect that's the new assistant," Amy  
said, looking up from The Big Peruvian Book of  
Small Peruvian Snakes. "I hope he's as nice as  
Knuckles."

"Me too," Tails said, opening and shutting  
a toad trap to make sure it worked smoothly. "It  
would be unpleasant to travel to Peru with  
somebody who was boring or mean."

"Gerja!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant something like "Well, let's go find out  
what Stephano is like!"

The Hedges left the Reptile Room and  
walked out the front door to find a taxi parked  
next to the snake-shaped hedges. A very tall,  
thin hedgehog with a long beard and no eyebrows  
over his eyes was getting out of the backseat,  
carrying a black suitcase with a shiny silver  
padlock.

"I'm not going to give you a tip," the bearded  
man was saying to the driver of the taxi,  
"because you talk too much. Not everybody wants to hear about your new baby, you  
know. Oh, hello there. I am Stephano, Dr.  
Knuckles new assistant. How do you do?"

"How do you do?" Tails said, and as he  
approached him, there was something about his  
wheezy voice that seemed vaguely familiar.

"How do you do?" Amy said, and as she  
looked up at Stephano, there was something  
about his shiny eyes that seemed quite familiar.

"Hooda!" Sonic shrieked. Stephano wasn't  
wearing any socks, and Sonic, crawling on the  
ground, could see his bare ankle between his  
pant cuff and his shoe. There on his ankle was  
something that was most familiar of all.

The Hedge orphans all realized the same  
thing at the same time, and took a step back as  
you might from a growling dog. This hedgehog wasn't  
Stephano, no matter what he called himself.  
The three children looked at Uncle Knuckles  
new assistant from head to toe and saw that he  
was none other than Count Eggman. He may have  
shaved off his one long eyebrow, and grown a  
beard over his scraggly chin, but there was no  
way he could hide the tattoo of an eye on his  
ankle.

CHAPTER

Four

One of the most difficult things to think about in life is one's regrets. Something  
will happen to you, and you will do the wrong thing, and for years afterward you will  
wish you had done some-  
thing different. For instance,  
sometimes when I am walk-  
ing along the seashore, or  
visiting the grave of a friend,  
I will remember a day, a long  
time ago, when I didn't bring a flashlight with me to a place where I should  
have brought a flashlight, and the results were  
disastrous. Why didn I bring a flashlight? I think  
to myself, even though it is too late to do any-  
thing about it. I should have brought a flashlight.

For years after this moment in the lives of the  
Hedge orphans, Amy thought of the time  
when she and her siblings realized that Stephano  
was actually Count Eggman, and was filled with  
regret that he didn't call out to the driver of the  
taxicab who was beginning to drive back down  
the driveway. Stop! Amy would think to herself, even though it was too late to do anything about it. Stop! Take this man away! Of course,  
it is perfectly understandable that Amy and  
her brothers were too surprised to act so quickly,  
but Amy would lie awake in bed, years later,  
thinking that maybe, just maybe, if she had acted  
in time, she could have saved Uncle Knuckles'  
life.

But she didn't. As the Hedge orphans  
stared at Count Eggman, the taxi drove back down the driveway and the children were alone with  
their nemesis, a word which here means "the  
worst enemy you could imagine." Eggman smiled  
at them the way Uncle Knuckles' Mongolian  
Meansnake would smile when a white mouse  
was placed in its cage each day for dinner.  
"Perhaps one of you might carry my suitcase  
into my room," he suggested in his wheezy  
voice. "The ride along that smelly road was dull  
and unpleasant and I am very tired."

"If anyone ever deserved to travel along  
Lousy Lane," Tails said, glaring at him, "it is  
you, Count Eggman. We will certainly not help you  
with your luggage, because we will not let you  
in this house."

Eggman frowned at the orphans, and then looked  
this way and that as if he expected to see some-  
one hiding behind the snake-shaped hedges.  
"Who is Count Eggman?" he asked quizzically.  
"My name is Stephano. I am here to assist  
Knuckles Knuckles with his upcoming  
expedition to Peru. I assume you three are midgets who work as servants in the Knuckles home."

"We are not midgets," Amy said sternly. "We  
are children. And you are not Stephano. You are  
Count Eggman. You may have grown a beard and  
shaved your eyebrow, but you are still the same  
despicable person and we will not let you in this  
house."

"Futa!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant something like "I agree!"

Count Eggman looked at each of the Hedge  
orphans, his eyes shining brightly as if he were  
telling a joke. "I don't know what you're talk-  
ing about," he said, "but if I did, and I were this  
Count Eggman you speak of, I would think that you  
were being very rude. And if I thought you were  
rude, I might get angry. And if I got angry, who  
knows what I would do?"

The children watched as Count Eggman raised  
his scrawny arms in a sort of shrug. It probably  
isn't necessary to remind you just how violent  
he could be, but it certainly wasn't necessary at all to remind the Hedges.

Tails could still  
feel the bruise on his face from the time Count  
Eggman had struck him, when they were living in  
his house. Sonic still ached from being stuffed  
into a birdcage and dangled from the tower  
where he made his evil plans. And while Amy  
had not been the victim of any physical violence  
from this terrible man, she had almost been  
forced to marry him, (and can still feel the ache of his bone crushing hand on her's), and that was enough to  
make her pick up his suitcase and drag it slowly  
toward the door to the house.

"Higher," Eggman said. "Lift it higher. I don't  
want it dragged along the ground like that."

Tails and Sonic hurried to help Amy with  
the suitcase, but even with the three of them  
carrying it the weight made them stagger. It was  
misery enough that Count Eggman had reappeared  
in their lives, just when they were feeling so  
comfortable and safe with Uncle Knuckles. But to  
actually be helping this awful person enter their  
home was almost more than they could bear.  
Eggman followed closely behind them and the  
three children could smell his stale breath as  
they brought the suitcase indoors and set it on  
the carpet beneath the painting of the entwined  
snakes.

"Thank you, orphans," Eggman said, in a poisend honey voice. A term which here means 'trying to sound sweet, good and innocent, but you know full well that they actually are not'. Count Eggman shutted the front door behind him. "Now, Dr. Knuckles said my room would be waiting upstairs. I suppose I can carry my luggage from here. Now run  
along. We'll have lots of time to get to know one  
another later."

"We already know you, Count Eggman," Tails  
said. "You obviously haven't changed a bit."

"You haven't changed, either," Eggman said. "It  
is clear to me, Tails, that you are as stubborn  
as ever. And Amy, you are still wearing those  
idiotic glasses from reading too many books and are much more stubborn than your idiotic older brother. And I see that little Sonic here still has nine toes instead of ten."

"Fut!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something like "I do not!"

"What are you talking about?" Amy said impatiently. "He has ten toes, just like everybody else."

"Really?" Eggman said. "That's odd. I remember  
that he lost one of his toes in an accident." His  
eyes shone even brighter, as if he were telling  
a joke, and he reached into the pocket of his  
shabby coat and brought out a long knife, such  
as one might use for slicing bread. "I seem to  
recall there was a man who was so confused by  
being called repeatedly by the wrong name that  
he accidentally dropped a knife on his little foot  
and severed one of his toes."

Tails and Amy looked at Count Eggman, and  
then at the bare foot of their little brother. "You  
wouldn't dare," Amy said.

"Let's not discuss what I would or would not  
dare to do," Eggman said. "Let us discuss, rather,  
what I am to be called for as long as we are  
together in this house."

"We'll call you Stephano, if you insist on  
threatening us," Amy said, "but we won't be together in this house for long."

Stephano opened his mouth to say something,  
but Amy was not interested in continuing  
the conversation. She turned on her heel and  
marched primly through the enormous door of  
the Reptile Room, followed by her siblings. If  
you or I had been there, we would have thought  
that the Hedge orphans weren't scared at  
all, speaking so bravely like that to Stephano  
and then simply walking away, but once the children reached the far end of the room, their true  
emotions showed clearly on their faces. The Hedges were terrified. Tails put his hands over his face and leaned against one of the reptile cages. Amy sank into a chair, trembling so  
hard that her feet rattled against the marble floor.  
And Sonic curled up into a little ball on the floor,  
so tiny you might have missed him if you walked  
into the room. For several moments, none of the  
children spoke, just listened to the muffled  
sounds of Stephano walking up the stairs and  
their own heartbeats pounding in their ears.

"How did he find us?" Tails asked. His voice  
was a hoarse whisper, as if he had a sore throat.  
"How did he get to be Uncle Knuckles' assistant?  
What is he doing here?"

"He vowed that he'd get his hands on the  
Hedge fortune," Amy said, taking her  
hands away from her face and picking up Sonic,  
who was shivering. "That was the last thing he  
said to me before he escaped. He said he'd get  
our fortune if it was the last thing he ever did."  
Amy shuddered, and did not add that he'd also  
said that once he got their fortune, he'd do away  
with all three of them. She  
did not need to add it. Tails, Amy and Sonic  
all knew that if he figured out a way to seize  
their fortune, he would slit the throats of the  
Hedge orphans as easily as you or I might  
eat a small butter cookie.

"What can we do?" Amy asked. "Uncle  
Knuckles won't be back for hours."

"Maybe we can call Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said.  
"It's the middle of business hours, but maybe he could leave the bank for an emergency."

"He wouldn't believe us," Amy said.  
"Remember when we tried to tell him about  
Count Eggman when we lived there? He took such  
a long time to realize the truth, it was almost too  
late. I think we should run away. If we leave  
right now, we could probably get to town in time  
to catch a train far away from here."

Tails pictured the three of them, all alone,  
walking along Lousy Lane beneath the sour  
apple trees, with the bitter smell of horseradish  
encircling them. "Where would we go?" he  
asked.

"Anywhere," Amy said. "Anywhere but  
here. We could go far away where Count Eggman  
wouldn't find us, and change our names so no  
one would know who we were."

"We haven't any money," Tails pointed out.  
"How could we live by ourselves?"

"We could get jobs," Amy replied. "I could  
work in a library, maybe, and you could work in  
some sort of mechnical factory. Sonic probably couldn't get a job at his age, but in a few years he could."

The three orphans were quiet. They tried to  
picture leaving Uncle Knuckles and living by  
themselves, trying to find jobs and take care of  
each other. It was a very lonely prospect. The  
Hedge children sat in sad silence awhile,  
and they were each thinking the same thing:  
They wished that their parents had never been  
killed in the fire, and that their lives had never  
been turned topsy-turvy the way they had. If  
only their parents were still alive, the  
youngsters wouldn't even have heard of Count  
Eggman, let alone have him settling into their home  
and undoubtedly making evil plans.

"We can't leave," Tails said finally. "Count  
Eggman found us once, and I'm sure he'd find us  
again, no matter how far we went. Plus, who  
knows where Count Eggman's assistants are? Per-  
haps they've surrounded the house right now,  
keeping watch in case we're on to him."

Amy shivered. She hadn't been thinking of  
Eggman's assistants. Besides scheming to get his  
hands on the Hedge fortune, Eggman was the  
leader of a terrible theater troupe, and his fellow  
actors were always ready to help him with his  
plans. They were a gruesome crew, each more  
terrifying than the next. There was a bald man  
with a long nose, who always wore a black robe.  
There were two women who always had ghostly  
white powder on their faces. There was a person  
so large and blank-looking that you couldn't tell if  
it was a man or a woman. And there was a skinny  
man with two hooks where his hands should  
have been. Tails was right. Any of these people  
could be lurking outside Uncle Knuckles' house,  
waiting to catch them if they tried to escape.

"I think we should just wait for Uncle Knuckles  
to come back, and tell him what has happened,"  
Tails said. "He'll believe us. If we tell him  
about the tattoo, he'll at least ask Stephano for  
an explanation." Tails' tone of voice when he  
said "Stephano" indicated his utter scorn for  
Eggman's disguise.

"Are you sure?" Amy said. "After all, Uncle  
Knuckles is the one who hired Stephano" Amy's  
tone of voice when she said "Stephano" indicated  
that she shared her brother's feelings. "For all we  
know, Uncle Knuckles and Stephano have planned  
something together."

"Minda!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant something like "Don't be ridiculous,  
Amy!"

Amy shook her head. "Sonic's right. I can't  
believe that Uncle Knuckles would be in cahoots  
with Eggman. He's been so kind and generous to  
us, and besides, if they were working together,  
Eggman wouldn't insist on using a different name."

"That's true," Tails said thoughtfully. "So we  
wait for Uncle Knuckles"

"We wait," Amy agreed.

"Tojoo," Sonic said solemnly, and the siblings looked at one another glumly. Waiting is  
one of life's hardships. It is hard enough to wait  
for chocolate cream pie while burnt roast beef  
is still on your plate. It is plenty difficult to

wait for Halloween when the tedious month of  
September is still ahead of you. But to wait for  
one's adopted uncle to come home while a  
greedy and violent man is upstairs was one of  
the worst waits the Hedges had ever experienced. To get their mind off it, they tried to continue with their work, but the children were too anxious to get anything done. Tails tried to fix a hinged door on one of the traps, but all he  
could concentrate on was the knot of worry in  
his stomach. Amy tried to read about protecting oneself from nicandra, but  
thoughts of Stephano kept clouding her brain.  
And Sonic tried to bite rope, but he had a cold  
chill of fear running through his teeth and  
he soon gave up. He didn't even feel like playing with the Incredibly Deadly Viper, and his joy of running, not for the first of times, seemed to have died out. So the Hedges spent the rest of the afternoon sitting silently in the Reptile Room, looking out the  
window for Uncle Knuckles' jeep and listening  
to the occasional noise from upstairs. They didn't even want to think about what Stephano might be unpacking.

Finally, as the snake-shaped hedges began to  
cast long, skinny shadows in the setting sun, the  
three children heard an approaching engine, and  
the jeep pulled up. A large canoe was strapped  
to the roof of the jeep, and the backseat was  
flooded with Knuckles' purchases. Uncle Knuckles got  
out, struggling under the weight of several shop-  
ping bags, his pockets with several meters of receipts, and saw the children through the glass walls of the Reptile Room. He smiled at  
them. They smiled back, and in that instant  
when they smiled was created another moment  
of regret for them. Had they not paused to smile  
at Knuckles but instead gone dashing out to the  
car, they might have had a brief moment alone  
with him. But by the time they reached the  
entry hall, he was already talking to Stephano.

"I didn't know what kind of toothbrush you  
preferred," Uncle Knuckles was saying apologetically, "so I got you one with extra-firm bristles because that's the kind I like. Peruvian food  
tends to be sticky, so you need to have at least  
one extra toothbrush whenever you go there."

"Extra-firm bristles are fine with me,"  
Stephano said, speaking to Uncle Knuckles but  
looking at the orphans with his shiny, shiny  
eyes. "Shall I carry in the canoe?"

"Yes, but my goodness, you can't carry it all  
by yourself," Uncle Knuckles said. "Tails, please  
help Stephano, will you?"

"Uncle Knuckles," Amy said, "we have some-  
thing very important to tell you."

"I'm all ears," Uncle Knuckles said, "but first  
let me show you the wasp repellent I picked up.  
I'm so glad Amy read up on the insect situation in Peru, because the other repellents I have would have been no use at all." Uncle Knuckles rooted through one of the bags on his arm as the  
children waited impatiently for him to finish.  
"This one contains a chemical called — "

"Uncle Knuckles," Tails said, "what we have to  
tell you really can't wait."

"Tails," Uncle Knuckles said, his eyebrows rising in surprise, "it's not polite to interrupt when your uncle is talking. Now, please help Stephano with the canoe, and we'll talk about anything you want in a few moments."

Tails sighed, but followed Stephano out the  
open door. Amy watched them walking toward  
the jeep as Uncle Knuckles put down the shopping  
bags and faced her. "I can't remember what I  
was saying about the repellent," he said, a little  
crossly. "I hate losing my train of thought."

"What we have to tell you," Amy began, but  
she stopped when something caught her eye.  
Knuckles was facing away from the door, so he  
couldn't see what Stephano was doing, but  
Amy saw Stephano stop at the snake-shaped  
hedges, reach into his coat pocket, and take  
out the long knife. Its blade caught the light  
of the setting sun and it glowed brightly, like  
a lighthouse. As you probably know, light-  
houses serve as warning signals, telling ships  
where the shore is so they don't run into it. The shining knife was a warning, too.

Tails looked at the knife, and then at  
Stephano, and then at Amy, back to the knife, back to Stephano and finally back at Amy. Amy looked at Tails, and then at Stephano, and then at Knuckles, then back to Tails, back to Stephano and finally back at Knuckles.  
Sonic looked at everyone and the knife. Only Knuckles didn't  
notice what was going on, so intent was he on  
remembering whatever he was babbling about  
wasp repellent. "What we have to tell you,"  
Amy began again, but she couldn't continue.  
Stephano didn't say a word. He didn't have  
to. Amy knew that if she breathed one word  
about his true identity, Stephano would hurt  
her brother, right there at the snake-shaped  
hedges. Without saying a word, the nemesis of  
the Hedge orphans had sent a very clear  
warning.

CHAPTER

Five

That night felt like the longest and most terrible the Hedge orphans had ever had, and they'd had plenty. There was when Tails was found on the Hedges' front porch and Tails, who was only a baby at the time can still remember that night when he was abandoned by his poor parents, he never found out what happened to them, even after all my best efforts of talking to every homeless, poor, fox in the continent, there one night, shortly after Sonic was born, that all three children had  
a horrible flu, and tossed and turned in the grasp  
of a terrible fever, while their father tried to  
soothe them all at once, placing cold washcloths  
on their sweaty brows. The night after their parents had been killed, the three children had  
stayed at Mr. Silver Poe's house, and had stayed up all  
night, too miserable and confused to even try to sleep. And of course, they had spent many long and terrible night while living with Count  
Eggman.

But this particular night seemed worse. From  
the moment of Knuckles' arrival until bedtime,  
Stephano kept the children under his constant  
surveillance, a phrase which here means "kept  
watching them so they couldn't possibly talk  
to Uncle Knuckles alone and reveal that he was  
really Count Eggman," and Uncle Knuckles was too  
preoccupied to think that anything unusual was  
going on. When they brought in the rest of  
Uncle Knuckles' purchases, Stephano carried bags  
with only one hand, keeping the other one in  
his coat pocket where the long knife was hidden, but Uncle Knuckles was too excited about all  
the new supplies to ask about it. When they  
went into the kitchen to prepare dinner,  
Stephano smiled menacingly at the children as  
he sliced mushrooms, but Uncle Knuckles was too  
busy making sure the stroganoff sauce didn't  
boil to even notice that Stephano was using his own threatening knife for the chopping. Over  
dinner, Stephano told funny stories and praised  
Knuckles' scientific work, and Uncle Knuckles was  
so flattered he didn't even think to guess that  
Stephano was holding a knife under the table,  
rubbing the blade gently against Amy's knee  
for the entire meal. And when Uncle Knuckles  
announced that he would spend the evening  
showing his new assistant around the Reptile  
Room, he was too eager to realize that the  
Hedges simply went up to bed without a  
word.

For the first time, having individual bed-  
rooms seemed like a hardship rather than a luxury, for without one another's company the orphans felt even more lonely and helpless.  
Tails stared at the paper tacked to his wall and  
tried to imagine what Stephano was planning.  
Amy sat in her large cushioned chair and turned  
on her silver reading lamp but was too worried  
to even open a book. Sonic stared at his hard  
objects but didn't bite a single one of them and he just stared at the hamster wheel.

All three children thought of walking down  
the hall to Uncle Knuckles' room and waking him  
up to tell him what was wrong. But to get to his  
bedroom, they would have to walk past the  
room in which Stephano was staying, and all  
night long Stephano kept watch in a chair  
placed in front of his open door. When the  
orphans opened their doors to peer down the  
dark hallway, they saw Stephano's pale, shaved  
head, which seemed to be floating above his  
body in the darkness. And they could see his  
knife, which Stephano was moving slowly like  
the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Back and  
forth it went, back and forth, glinting in the dim  
light, and the sight was so fearsome they didn't  
dare try walking down the hallway.

Finally, the light in the house turned the pale  
blue-gray of early dawn, and the Hedge  
children walked blearily down the stairs to  
breakfast, tired and achy from their sleepless  
night. They sat around the table where they had

eaten cake on their first morning at the house,  
and picked listlessly at their food. For the first  
time since their arrival at Uncle Knuckles', they  
were not eager to enter the Reptile Room and  
begin the day's work.

"I suppose we have to go in now," Amy said  
finally, putting aside her scarcely nibbled toast.  
"I'm sure Uncle Knuckles has already started  
working, and is expecting us."

"And I'm sure that Stephano is there, too,"  
Tails said, staring glumly into his cereal bowl.  
"We'll never get a chance to tell Uncle Knuckles  
what we know about him."

"Yinga," Sonic said sadly, dropping his untouched raw carrot to the floor.

"If only Uncle Knuckles knew what we know,"  
Tails said, "and Stephano knew that he knew  
what we know. But Uncle Knuckles doesn't know  
what we know, and Stephano knows that he  
doesn't know what we know."

"I know," Amy said.

"I know you know," Tails said, "but what  
we don't know is what Count — I mean  
Stephano — is really up to. He's after our fortune,  
certainly, but how can he get it if we're under  
Uncle Knuckles' care?"

"Maybe he's just going to wait until you're of  
age, and then steal the fortune," Amy said.

"Four years is a long time to wait," Tails  
said. The three orphans were quiet, as each re-  
membered where they had been four years ago.  
Tails had been ten, and had bangs very  
short. He remembered that sometime around  
his tenth birthday she had invented a new kind  
of pencil sharpener. Amy had been about eight,  
and she remembered how interested he had  
been in comets, reading all the astronomy books  
her parents had in their library. Sonic, of course,  
had not been born four years ago, and he sat  
and tried to remember what that was like. Very  
dark, he thought, with nothing to bite and nowhere to run. For all  
three youngsters, four years did seem like a very  
long time.

"Come on, come on, you are moving very  
slowly this morning," Uncle Knuckles said, bursting into the room. His face seemed even brighter than usual, and he was holding a small  
bunch of folded papers in one hand. "Stephano  
has only worked here one day, and he's already  
in the Reptile Room. In fact, he was up before  
I was — I ran into him on my way down the  
stairs. He's an eager beaver. But you three —  
you're moving like the Hungarian Sloth Snake,  
whose top speed is half a centimeter per hour! We  
have lots to do today, and I'd like to catch the  
six o'clock showing of Zombies in the Snow  
tonight, so let's try to hurry, hurry, hurry."

Amy looked at Uncle Knuckles, and realized that this might be their only opportunity to talk to him alone, without Stephano around, but he  
seemed so wound up they weren't sure if he  
would listen to them. "Speaking of Stephano,"  
she said timidly, "we'd like to talk to you about  
him."

Uncle Knuckles' eyes widened, and he looked around him as if there were spies in the room before leaning in to whisper to the children. "I'd  
like to talk to you, too," he said. "I have my suspicions about Stephano, and I'd like to discuss them with you."

The Hedge orphans looked at one an-  
other in relief. "You do?" Tails said.

"Of course," Uncle Knuckles said. "Last night  
I began to get very suspicious about this new  
assistant of mine. There's something a little  
spooky about him, and I — " Uncle Knuckles  
looked around again, and began speaking even  
softer, so the children had to hold their breaths  
to hear him. "And I think we should discuss it  
outside. Shall we?"

The children nodded in agreement, and rose  
from the table. Leaving their dirty breakfast  
dishes behind, which is not a good thing to do  
in general but perfectly acceptable in the face  
of an emergency, they walked with Uncle  
Knuckles to the front entryway, past the painting  
of two snakes entwined together, out the front door, and onto the lawn, as if they wanted to talk  
to the snake-shaped hedges instead of to one  
another.

"I don't mean to be vainglorious," Uncle  
Knuckles began, using a word which here means  
"braggy," u but I really am one of the most widely  
respected herpetologists in the world."

Tails blinked. It was an unexpected beginning for the conversation. "Of course you are," he said, "but—"

"And because of this, I'm sad to say," Uncle  
Knuckles continued, as if he had not heard, "many  
people are jealous of me."

"I'm sure that's true," Amy said, puzzled.

"And when people are jealous," Uncle Knuckles said, shaking his head, "they will do anything. They will do crazy things. When I was getting  
my herpetology degree, my roommate was so  
envious of a new toad I had discovered that he  
stole and ate my only specimen. I had to X-ray  
his stomach, and use the X-rays rather than the  
toad in my presentation. And something tells me we may have a similar situation here."

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you," Tails  
said, which is the polite way of saying "What are  
you talking about, Uncle Knuckles?"

"Last night, after you went to bed, Stephano  
asked me a few too many questions about all the  
snakes and about my upcoming expedition. And  
do you know why?"

"I think so," Amy began, but Uncle Knuckles  
interrupted her.

"It is because this man who is calling himself  
Stephano," he said, "is really a member of the  
Herpetological Society, and he is here to try and  
find the Incredibly Deadly Viper so he can preempt my presentation. Do you three know what the word 'preempt' means?"

"Yes," Tails said, "but—"

"It means that I think this Stephano is going  
to steal my snake," Uncle Knuckles said, "and present it to the Herpetological Society. Because  
it is a new species, there's no way I can prove I discovered it. Before we know it, the Incredibly Deadly Viper will be called the Stephano Snake,  
or something dreadful like that. And if he's  
planning that, just think what he will do to  
our Peruvian expedition. Each toad we catch,  
each venom sample we put into a test tube,  
each snake interview we record — every scrap  
of work we do — will fall into the hands of this  
Herpetological Society spy."

"He's not a Herpetological Society spy,"  
Tails said impatiently, "he's Count Eggman!"

"I know just what you mean!" Uncle Knuckles  
said excitedly. "This sort of behavior is indeed  
as dastardly as that terrible man's. Even though I want to believe you, I think your theory is a little too far. Anyway, this is why I'm doing this." He raised one hand and waved the folded papers in the air. "As you know," he  
said, "tomorrow we are leaving for Peru. These  
are our tickets for the five o'clock voyage on  
the Prospero, a fine ship that will take us across  
the sea to South America. I want to fly with my snakes, but last time it was a disaster in the airport. There's a ticket  
for me, one for Tails, one for Amy, one for  
Stephano, but not one for Sonic because we're going to hide him in a suitcase to save money."

"Deepo!"

"I'm joking about that, babies go on for free. But I'm not kidding  
about this." Uncle Knuckles, his face flushed with  
excitement, took one of the folded papers and  
began ripping it into tiny pieces. "This is  
Stephano's ticket. He's not going to Peru with  
us after all. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to tell  
him that he needs to stay here and look after my  
specimens instead. That way we can run a successful expedition in peace."

"But Uncle — " Amy said.

"How many times must I remind you it's  
not polite to interrupt?" Uncle Knuckles interrupted, shaking his head. "In any case, I know  
what you're worried about. You're worried what  
will happen if he stays here alone with the  
Incredibly Deadly Viper. But don't worry. The  
Viper will join us on the expedition, traveling in  
one of our snake carrying cases. I don't know  
why you're looking so glum, Sonic. I thought  
you'd be happy to have the Viper's company. So don't look so worried, bambini. As you can see, your Uncle Knuckles has the situation in hand."

When somebody is a little bit wrong — say,  
when a waiter puts nonfat milk in your espresso  
macchiato, instead of lowfat milk — it is often  
quite easy to explain to them how and why they  
are wrong. But if somebody is surpassingly  
wrong — say, when a waiter bites your nose  
instead of taking your order — you can often be  
so surprised that you are unable to say anything  
at all. Paralyzed by how wrong the waiter is,  
your mouth would hang slightly open and your  
eyes would blink over and over, but you would  
be unable to say a word. This is what the  
Hedge children did. Uncle Knuckles was so  
wrong about Stephano, in thinking he was a herpetological spy rather than Count Eggman, that the three siblings could scarcely think of a way to  
tell him so.

"Come now, my dears," Uncle Knuckles said.  
"We've wasted enough of the morning on talk.  
We have to — ow!" He interrupted himself with a cry of surprise and pain, and fell to the ground.

"Uncle Knuckles!" Amy cried. The Hedge  
children saw that a large, shiny object was on  
top of him, and realized a moment later what  
the object was: it was the heavy silver reading  
lamp, the one standing next to the large cushioned chair in Amy's room.

"Ow!" Uncle Knuckles said again, pulling the  
lamp off him. "That really hurt. My shoulder  
may be sprained. It's a good thing it didn't land  
on my head, or it really could have done some  
damage."

"But where did it come from?" Tails asked.

"It must have fallen from the window," Uncle  
Knuckles said, pointing up to where Amy's room  
was. "Whose room is that? Amy, I believe it is  
yours. You must be more careful. You can't dangle heavy objects out the window like that. Look what almost happened."

"But that lamp wasn't anywhere near my window," Amy said. "I keep it in the alcove, so I can read in that large chair."

"Really, Amy," Uncle Knuckles said, standing  
up and handing her the lamp. "Do you honestly  
expect me to believe that the lamp danced over  
to the window and leaped onto my shoulder?...or that?" Uncle Knuckles seemed to pause a bit then he said, in a voice like nothing had happend  
"Please put this back in your room, in a safe  
place, and we'll say no more about it."

"But — " Amy said, but her older brother interrupted her.

"I'll help you, Amy," Tails said. "We'll find  
a place for it where it's safe."

"Well, don't be too long," Uncle Knuckles said,  
rubbing his shoulder. "We'll see you in the  
Reptile Room. Come, Sonic."

Walking through the entry hall, the four  
parted ways at the stairs, with Uncle Knuckles  
and Sonic going to the enormous door of the  
Reptile Room, and Tails and Amy carrying the  
heavy silver lamp up to Amy's room.

"You know very well" Amy hissed to her brother, "that I was not careless with this lamp."

"Of course I know that," Tails whispered.  
"But there's no use trying to explain that to

Uncle Knuckles. He thinks Stephano is a herpetological spy. Plus he might belive what we are thinking, but not in the right way You know as well as I do that  
Stephano was responsible for this."

"How clever of you to figure that out," said a  
voice at the top of the stairs, and Tails and  
Amy were so surprised they almost dropped  
the lamp. It was Stephano, or, if you prefer, it  
was Count Eggman. It was the bad guy. "But then, you've always been clever children," he continued. "A little too clever for my taste, but you  
won't be around for long, so I'm not troubled by it."

"You're not very clever yourself, " Amy said  
fiercely. "This heavy silver lamp almost hit us,  
but if anything happens to my brothers or me,  
you'll never get your hands on the Hedge  
fortune."

"Dear me, dear me," Stephano said, his grimy  
teeth showing as he smiled. "If I wanted to  
harm you, orphan, your blood would already be  
pouring down these stairs like a waterfall. No,  
I'm not going to harm a hair on any Hedge  
head — not here in this house. You needn't be  
afraid of me, little ones, until we find ourselves  
in a location where crimes are more difficult to  
trace."

"And where would that be?" Tails asked.  
"We plan to stay right here until we grow up."

"Really?" Stephano said, in that sneaky,  
sneaky voice. "Why, I had the impression we  
were leaving the country tomorrow."

"Uncle Knuckles tore up your ticket," Amy  
replied triumphantly. "He was suspicious of  
you, so he changed his plans and now you're not  
going with us."

Amy decided not to mention that Uncle Knuckles suspects that he was involved with the lamp incident, but she knew that it won't be a good idea.

Stephano's smile turned into a scowl, and his  
stained teeth seemed to grow bigger. His eyes  
grew so shiny that it hurt Tails and Amy to  
look at them. "I wouldn't rely on that," he said,  
in a terrible, terrible voice. "Even the best plans  
can change if there's an accident." He pointed  
one spiky finger at the brass reading lamp. "And  
accidents happen all the time."

CHAPTER

Six

Bad circumstances have a way of ruining things  
that would otherwise be pleasant. So it was with  
the Hedge orphans and the movie Zombies in the Snow. All afternoon, the three children had sat and worried in the Reptile Room, under the  
mocking stare of Stephano and the oblivious —  
the word "oblivious"  
here means "not aware  
that Stephano was really  
Count Eggman and thus  
being in a great deal of  
danger" — chatter of Uncle  
Knuckles, who seemed to have forgotten his suspisions. So by the time it  
was evening, the siblings

were in no mood for cinematic entertainment.  
Uncle Knuckles' jeep was really too small to hold  
him, Stephano and the three orphans, so Tails  
and Amy shared a seat, and poor Sonic had to  
sit on Stephano's filthy lap, but the Hedges  
were too preoccupied to even notice their dis-  
comfort.

The children sat all in a row at the multiplex, with Uncle Knuckles to one side, while  
Stephano sat in the middle and hogged the pop-  
corn. But the children were too anxious to eat  
any snacks, and too busy trying to figure out  
what Stephano planned to do to enjoy Zombies  
in the Snow, which was a fine film. When the  
zombies first rose out of the snowbanks sur-  
rounding the tiny Alpine fishing village, Tails  
tried to imagine a way in which Stephano could  
get aboard the Prospero without a ticket and  
accompany them to Peru. When the town fathers  
constructed a barrier of sturdy oak, only to have  
the zombies chomp their way through it, Amy  
was concerned with exactly what Stephano had meant when he spoke about accidents. And  
when Gerta, the little milkmaid, made friends  
with the zombies and asked them to please  
stop eating the villagers, Sonic, who was of  
course scarcely old enough to comprehend the  
orphans' situation, tried to think up a way to  
defeat Stephanos plans, whatever they were. In  
the final scene of the movie, the zombies and  
villagers celebrated May Day together, but the  
three Hedge orphans were too nervous and  
afraid to enjoy themselves one bit. On the way  
home, Uncle Knuckles tried to talk to the silent,  
worried children sitting in the back, but they  
hardly said a word in reply and eventually he  
fell silent.

When the jeep pulled up to the snake-shaped  
hedges, the Hedge children dashed out and  
ran to the front door without even saying good  
night to their puzzled guardian. With heavy  
hearts they climbed the stairs to their bed-  
rooms, but when they reached their doors they  
could not bear to part.

"Could we all spend the night in the same  
room?" Amy asked Tails timidly. "Last night  
I felt as if I were in a jail cell, worrying all by  
myself."

"Me too," Tails admitted. "Since we're not  
going to sleep, we might as well not sleep in the  
same place."

"Tikko," Sonic agreed, and followed his siblings into Tails' room. Tails looked around the bedroom and remembered how excited he  
had been to move into it just a short while ago.  
Now, the enormous window with the view of  
the snake-shaped hedges seemed depressing  
rather than inspiring, and the blank pages  
tacked to his wall, rather than being convenient, seemed only to remind her of how anxious she was.

"I see you haven't worked much on your  
inventions," Amy said gently. "I haven't been  
reading at all. When Count Eggman is around, it  
sure puts a damper on the imagination."

"Not always," Tails pointed out. "When we  
lived with him, we read all about nuptial law to  
find out about his plan, even though you figured out count Eggman's plan hours before I did, and I invented a grappling hook to put a stop to it."

"In this situation, though," Amy said glumly,  
"we don't even know what Count Eggman is up to.  
How can we formulate a plan if we don't know  
his plan?"

"Well, let's try to hash this out," Tails said,  
using an expression which here means "talk  
about something at length until we completely  
understand it." "Count Eggman, calling himself  
Stephano, has come to this house in disguise  
and is obviously after the Hedge fortune."

"And," Amy continued, "once he gets his  
hands on it, he plans to kill us."

"Tadu," Sonic murmured solemnly, which  
probably meant something along the lines of  
"It's a loathsome situation in which we find  
ourselves."

"However," Amy said, "if he harms us, there's no way he can get to our fortune. That's why he tried to marry me last time."

"Thank God that didn't work," Tails said,  
shivering. "Then Count Eggman would be my  
brother-in-law. But this time he's not planning to marry you. He said something about an accident."

"And about heading to a location where  
crimes are more difficult to trace," Amy said,  
remembering his words. "That must mean Peru.  
But Stephano isn't going to Peru. Uncle Knuckles tore up his ticket."

"Doog!" Sonic shrieked, in a generic cry of  
frustration, and pounded his little fist on the  
floor. The word "generic" here means "when  
one is unable to think of anything else to say,"  
and Sonic was not alone in this. Tails and  
Amy were of course too old to say things like  
"Doog!" but they wished they weren't. They  
wished they could figure out Count Eggman's plan.  
They wished their situation didn't seem as mysterious and hopeless as it did, and they wished they were young enough to simply shriek  
"Doog!" and pound their fists on the floor. And  
most of all, of course, they wished that their par-  
ents were alive and that the Hedges were  
all safe in the home where they had been born.

And as fervently as the Hedge orphans  
wished their circumstances were different, I  
wish that I could somehow change the circum-  
stances of this story for you. Even as I sit here,  
safe as can be and so very far from Count Eggman,  
I can scarcely bear to write another word.  
Perhaps it would be best if you shut this book  
right now and never read the rest of this horrifying story. You can imagine, if you wish, that an hour later, the Hedge orphans suddenly  
figured out what Stephano was up to and were  
able to save Uncle Knuckles' life. You can picture  
the police arriving with all their flashing lights  
and sirens, and dragging Stephano away to jail  
for the rest of his life. You can pretend, even  
though it is not so, that the Hedges are living happily with Uncle Knuckles to this day. Or best of all, you can conjure up the illusion that  
the Hedge parents have not been killed,  
and that the terrible fire and Count Eggman and Uncle Knuckles and all the other unfortunate events are nothing more than a dream, a figment  
of the imagination.

But this story is not a happy one, and I am not  
happy to tell you that the Hedge orphans  
sat dumbly in Tails' room — the word "dumbly"  
here means "without speaking," rather than "in  
a stupid way" — for the rest of the night. Had  
someone peeped through the bedroom window  
as the morning sun rose, they would have seen  
the three children huddled together on the bed,  
their eyes wide open and dark with worry. But  
nobody peeped through the window. Somebody  
knocked on the door, four loud knocks as if  
something were being nailed shut.

The children blinked and looked at one  
another. "Who is it?" Tails called out, his voice  
crackly from being silent so long.

Instead of an answer, whoever it was simply turned the knob and the door swung slowly  
open. There stood Stephano, with his clothes  
all rumpled and his eyes shining brighter than  
they ever had before.

"Good morning," he said. "It's time to leave  
for Peru. There is just room for three orphans  
and myself in the jeep, so get a move on."

"We told you yesterday that you weren't  
going," Amy said. She hoped her voice sounded  
braver than she felt.

"It is your Uncle Knuckles who isn't going,"  
Stephano said, and raised the part of his fore-  
head where his eyebrow should have been.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tails said. "Uncle  
Knuckles wouldn't miss this expedition for the  
world."

"Ask him," Stephano said, and the Hedges  
saw a familiar expression on his face. His mouth  
scarcely moved, but his eyes were shining as if  
he'd just told a joke. "Why don't you ask him?  
He's down in the Reptile Room."

"We will ask him," Tails said. "Uncle Knuckles  
has no intention of letting you take us to Peru  
alone." He rose from the bed, took the hands  
of his siblings, and walked quickly past Stephano  
who was smirking in the doorway. "We will ask  
him," Tails said again, and Stephano gave a  
little bow as the children walked out of the  
room.

The hallway was strangely quiet, and blank  
as the eyes of a skull. "Uncle Knuckles?" Tails  
called, at the end of the hallway. Nobody  
answered.

Aside from a few creaks on the steps, the  
whole house was eerily quiet, as if it had been  
deserted for many years. "Uncle Knuckles?" Amy  
called, at the bottom of the stairs. They heard  
nothing.

Standing on tiptoe, Tails opened the enormous door of the Reptile Room and for a  
moment, the orphans stared into the room as if  
hypnotized, entranced by the odd blue light  
which the sunrise made as it shone through the  
glass ceiling and walls. In the dim glow, they could see only silhouettes of the various reptiles  
as they moved around in their cages, or slept,  
curled into shapeless dark masses.

Their footsteps echoing off the glimmering  
walls, the three siblings walked through the  
Reptile Room, toward the far end, where Uncle  
Knuckles' library lay waiting for them. Even  
though the dark room felt mysterious and  
strange, it was a comforting mystery, and a safe  
strangeness. They remembered Uncle Knuckles'  
promise: that if they took time to learn the facts,  
no harm would come to them here in the  
Reptile Room. However, you and I remember  
that Uncle Knuckles' promise was laden with dramatic irony, and now, here in the early-morning gloom of the Reptile Room, that irony was going  
to come to fruition, a phrase which here means  
"the Hedges were finally to learn of it." For  
just as they reached the books, the three sib-  
lings could see a large, shadowy mass huddled  
in the far corner. Nervously, Amy switched on  
one of the reading lamps to get a better look.

The shadowy mass was Uncle Knuckles. His mouth  
was slightly agape, as if he were surprised, and  
his eyes were wide open, but he didn't appear  
to see them. His face, usually so rosy, was very,  
very pale, and under his left eye were two small  
holes, right in a line, the sort of mark made by  
the two fangs of a snake.

"Divo soom?" Sonic asked, and tugged at his  
pants leg. Uncle Knuckles did not move. As he had  
promised, no harm had come to the Hedge orphans in the Reptile Room, but great harm  
had come to Uncle Knuckles.

CHAPTER

Seven

"My, my, my, my, my," said a voice from behind them, and  
the Hedge orphans turned  
to find Stephano standing  
there, the black suitcase with  
the shiny silver padlock in his  
hands and a look of brummagem surprise on his face.  
"Brummagem" is such a rare  
word for "fake" that even  
Amy didn't know what it  
meant, but the children did  
not have to be told that  
Stephano was pretending to be surprised. "What a terrible accident has happened here. Snakebite. Whoever discovers this  
will be most upset."

"You — " Tails began to say, but his throat  
fluttered, as if the fact of Uncle Knuckles' death  
were food that tasted terrible. "You — " he said  
again.

Stephano took no notice. "Of course, after  
they discover that Dr. Knuckles Knuckles is dead,  
they'll wonder what became of those repulsive  
orphans he had lying around the house. But  
they'll be long gone. Speaking of which, it's  
time to leave. The Prospero sails at five o'clock  
from Hazy Harbor and I'd like to be the first  
passenger aboard. That way I'll have time for a  
bottle of wine before lunch."

"How could you?" Amy whispered hoarsely.  
She couldn't take his eyes off Uncle Knuckles'  
pale, pale face. "How could you do this? How  
could you murder him?"

"Why, Amy, I'm surprised," Stephano said,  
and walked over to Uncle Knuckles' body. "A  
smarty-pants girl like you should be able to figure out that your chubby old uncle died from snakebite, not from murder. Look at those teeth  
marks. Look at his pale, pale face. Look at these  
staring eyes."

"Stop it!" Tails said. "Don t talk like that!"

"You're right!" Stephano said. "There's no  
time for chitchat! We have a ship to catch! Let's  
move!"

"We're not going anywhere with you," Tails  
said. His face was pinched with the effort of  
focusing on their predicament rather than going  
to pieces. "We will stay here until the police  
come."

"And how do you suppose the police will  
know to come?" Stephano said.

"We will call them," Tails said, in what he  
hoped was a firm tone of voice, and began to  
walk toward the door.

Stephano dropped his suitcase, the shiny  
silver padlock making a clattering sound as it  
hit the marble floor. He took a few steps and blocked Tails' way, his eyes wide and red with fury. "I am so tired"" Stephano snarled, "of having to explain everything to you. You're supposed to be so very smart, and yet you always seem to  
forget about this" He reached into his pocket and  
pulled out the jagged knife. "This is my knife.  
It is very sharp and very eager to hurt you —  
almost as eager as I am. If you don't do what I  
say, you will suffer bodily harm. Is that clear  
enough for you? Now, get in the damn jeep."

It is, as you know, very, very rude and usually  
unnecessary to use profanity, but the Hedge  
orphans were too terrified to point this out to  
Stephano. Taking a last look at their poor Uncle  
Knuckles, the three children followed Stephano to  
the door of the Reptile Room to get in the damn  
jeep. To add insult to injury — a phrase which  
here means "forcing somebody to do an un-  
pleasant task when they're already very upset" —  
Stephano forced Amy to carry his suitcase out  
of the house, but she was too lost in her own  
thoughts to care. She was remembering the last  
conversation she and her siblings had had with  
Uncle Knuckles, and thinking with a cold rush of  
shame that it hadn't really been a conversation  
at all. You will recall, of course, that on the ride  
home from seeing Zombies in the Snow, the chil-  
dren had been so worried about Stephano that  
they hadn't said a word to Uncle Knuckles', and  
that when the jeep had arrived at the house, the  
Hedge orphans had dashed upstairs to hash  
out the situation, without even saying good  
night to the man who now lay dead under a  
sheet in the Reptile Room. As the youngsters  
reached the jeep, Amy tried to remember if  
they had even thanked him for taking them  
to the movies, but the night was all a blur. She  
thought that she, Tails, and Sonic had probably said "Thank you, Uncle Knuckles," when they were standing together at the ticket booth,  
but she couldn't be sure. Stephano opened the  
door of the jeep and gestured with the knife,  
ushering Tails and Sonic into the tiny back-  
seat and Amy, the black suitcase heavy on her lap, into the front seat beside him. The orphans had a brief hope that the engine would not start when Stephano turned the key in the ignition, but this was a futile hope. Uncle Knuckles took  
good care of his jeep, and it started right up.

Tails, Amy and Sonic looked behind them  
as Stephano began to drive alongside the snake-  
shaped hedges. At the sight of the Reptile  
Room, which Uncle Knuckles had filled so carefully with his specimens and in which he was now a sort of specimen himself, the weight of the Hedges' despair was too much for them and they quietly began to cry. It is a curious  
thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that  
our time in this world is limited, and that even-  
tually all of us will end up underneath some  
sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a  
surprise when it happens to someone we know.  
It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom  
in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair  
than there is. Your foot falls down, through the  
air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise  
as you try and readjust the way you thought of  
things. The Hedge orphans were crying not  
only for their Uncle Knuckles, but for their own  
parents, and this dark and curious feeling of  
falling that accompanies any great loss.

What was to happen to them? Stephano had  
heartlessly slaughtered the man who was sup-  
posed to be watching over the Hedges, and  
now they were all alone. What would Stephano  
do to them? He was supposed to be left behind  
when they went to Peru, and now he would be  
leaving with them on the Prospero. And what  
terrible things would happen in Peru? Would  
anybody rescue them there? Would Stephano  
get his hands on the fortune? And what would  
happen to the three children afterward? These  
are frightening questions, and if you are thinking about such matters, they require your full  
attention, and the orphans were so immersed in  
thinking about them that they didn't realize that  
Stephano was about to collide with another  
automobile until the moment of impact.

There was a horrible tearing sound of metal  
and glass as a black car crashed into Uncle  
Knuckles' jeep, throwing the children to the floor  
with a jarring thump that felt as though it left the  
Hedge's stomachs up on the seat. The black  
suitcase lurched into Amy's shoulder and then  
forward into the windshield, which immediately  
cracked in a dozen places so it looked like a  
spiderweb. Stephano gave a cry of surprise and  
turned the steering wheel this way and that, but  
the two vehicles were locked together and, with  
another thump, veered off the road into a small  
pile of mud. It is a rare occurrence when a car  
accident can be called a stroke of good fortune,  
but that was most certainly the case here. With  
the snake-shaped hedges still clearly visible  
behind them, the Hedges' journey toward  
Hazy Harbor had stopped.

Stephano gave another sharp cry, this one of  
rage. "Blasted furnaces of hell!" he shouted, as  
Amy rubbed her shoulder to make sure she

wasn't seriously hurt. Tails and Sonic got up  
cautiously from the jeep floor and looked out the  
cracked windshield. There appeared to be only  
one person in the other car, but it was hard to tell,  
as that vehicle had clearly suffered much more  
damage than Knuckles' jeep. Its entire front had  
pleated itself together, like an accordion, and one  
hubcap was spinning noisily on the pavement of  
Lousy Lane, making blurry circles as if it were a  
giant coin somebody had dropped. The driver  
was dressed in gray and making a rough hacking  
sound as he opened the crumpled door of the car  
and struggled his way out. He made the hacking  
sound again, and then reached into a pocket of  
his suit and pulled out a white handkerchief.

"It's Mr. Silver Poe!" Tails cried.

It was Mr. Silver Poe, coughing away as usual, and  
the children were so delighted to see him  
that they found themselves smiling despite  
their horrible circumstances. "Mr. Silver Poe! Mr. Silver Poe!" Amy cried, reaching around Stephano's suitcase to open the passenger door.

Stephano reached out an arm and grabbed her  
sore shoulder, turning his head slowly so that  
each child saw his shiny eyes. "This changes  
nothing he hissed at them. "This is a bit of luck  
for you, but it is your last. The three of you will  
be back in this car with me and heading toward  
Hazy Harbor in time to catch the Prospero,  
I promise you."

"We'll see about that," Amy replied, open-  
ing the door and sliding out from beneath the  
suitcase. Tails opened his door and followed  
her, carrying Sonic. "Mr. Silver Poe! Mr. Silver Poe!"

"Amy?" Mr. Silver Poe asked. "Amy Hedge?  
Is that you?"

"Yes, Mr. Silver Poe," Amy said. "It's all of us, and  
we're so grateful you ran into us like this."

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Mr. Silver Poe said.  
"This was clearly the other driver's fault. You  
ran into me"

"How dare you!" Stephano shouted, and got  
out of the car himself, wrinkling his nose at  
the smell of horseradish that filled the air. He  
stomped over to where Mr. Silver Poe was standing, but  
halfway there the children saw his face change  
from one of pure rage to one of brummagem  
confusion and sadness. "I'm sorry," he said, in  
a high, fluttery voice. "This whole thing is my  
fault. I'm so distressed by what has happened  
that I wasn't paying any attention to the rules of  
the road. I hope you're not hurt, Mr. Liver Foe."

"It's Silver Poe" Mr. Silver Poe said. "My name is Silver Poe. I'm  
not hurt. Luckily, it looks like nobody was hurt.  
I wish the same could be said for my car. But  
who are you and what are you doing with the  
Hedge children?"

"I'll tell you who he is," Tails said. "He's—"

"Please, Tails," Mr. Silver Poe admonished, a word  
which here means "reprimanded Tails even  
though he was interrupting for a very good rea-  
son." "It is not polite to interrupt."

"My name is Stephano," Stephano said, shaking Mr. Silver Poe's hand. "I am — I mean I was — Dr. Knuckles' assistant."

"What do you mean was" Mr. Silver Poe asked  
sternly. "Were you fired?"

"No. Dr. Knuckles Knuckles — oh, excuse me — "  
Stephano turned away and pretended to dab at  
his eyes as if he were too sad to continue. Facing  
away from Mr. Silver Poe, he gave the orphans a big  
wink before continuing. "I'm sorry to tell you  
there's been a horrible accident, Mr. Quiver Doe. Dr.  
Knuckles is dead."

"Silver Poe," Mr. Silver Poe said. "He's dead? That's terrible. What has happened?"

"I don't know," Stephano said. "It looks like  
snakebite to me, but I don't know anything  
about snakes. That's why I was going into town,  
to get a doctor. The children seemed too upset  
to be left alone."

"He's not taking us to get a doctor!" Tails  
shouted. "He's taking us to Peru!"

"You see what I mean?" Stephano said to Mr.  
Silver Poe, patting Tails' head. "The children are  
obviously very distressed. Dr. Knuckles was going to take them to Peru today."

"Yes, I know," Mr. Silver Poe said. "That's why I hurried over here this morning, to finally bring them their luggage. Tails, I know you're confused and  
upset over this accident, but please try to under-  
stand that if Dr. Knuckles is really dead, the  
expedition is canceled."

"But Mr. — " Tails said indignantly.

"Please," Mr. Silver Poe said. "This is a matter for  
adults to discuss, Tails. Clearly, a doctor needs  
to be called."

"Well, why don't you drive on up to the  
house," Stephano said, "and I'll take the children and find a doctor."

"Jose!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant something like "No way!"

"Why don't we all go to the house," Mr. Silver Poe  
said, "and call for a doctor?"

Stephano blinked, and for a second his face  
grew angry again before he was able to calm  
himself and answer smoothly. "Of course," he  
said. "I should have called earlier. Obviously  
I'm not thinking as clearly as you. Here, children, get back in the jeep, and Mr. Silver Poe will follow us."

"We're not getting back in that car with you,"  
Amy said firmly.

"Please, Amy," Mr. Poe said. "Try to under-  
stand. There's been a serious accident. All other  
discussions will have to be put aside. The only  
trouble is, I'm not sure my car will start. It's very  
smashed up."

"Try the ignition," Stephano said. Mr. Silver Poe  
nodded, and walked back to his car. He sat in  
the driver's seat and turned the key. The engine  
made a rough, wet noise — it sounded quite a bit  
like Mr. Silver Poe's coughs — but it did not start.

"I'm afraid the engine is quite dead," Mr. Silver Poe  
called out.

"And before long," Stephano muttered to the  
children, "you will be too."

"I'm sorry," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I couldn't hear you."

Stephano smiled. "I said, that's too bad. Well,  
why don't I take the orphans back to the house,  
and you walk behind us? There isn't room for  
everyone."

Mr. Poe frowned. "But the children's suitcases are here. I don't want to leave them un- attended. Why don't we put the luggage into  
your car, and the children and I will walk back  
to the house?"

Stephano frowned. "Well, one of the children  
should ride with me, so I won't get lost."

Mr. Silver Poe smiled. "But you can see the house  
from here. You won't get lost. Were just ½ a block away"

"Stephano doesn't want us to be alone with  
you," Amy said, finally speaking up. She had  
been waiting for the proper moment to make  
her case. "He's afraid that we'll tell you who he  
really is, and what he's really up to."

"What's she talking about?" Mr. Silver Poe asked  
Stephano.

"I have no idea, Mr. Wilver Toe," Stephano replied,  
shaking his head and looking at Amy fiercely.

Amy took a deep breath. "This man is not  
Stephano," she said, pointing at him. "He's  
Count Eggman, and he's here to take us away."

"Who am I?" Stephano asked. "What am I  
doing?"

Mr. Silver Poe looked Stephano up and down, and  
then shook his head. "Forgive the children," he  
said. "They are very upset. Count Eggman is a terrible man who tried to steal their money, and the youngsters are very frightened of him."

"Do I look like this Count Eggman?" Stephano  
asked, his eyes shining.

"No, you don't," Mr. Silver Poe said. "He  
had one long eyebrow, and a clean-shaven face.  
You have a beard, and if you don't mind my saying so, no eyebrows at all."

"He shaved his eyebrow," Tails said, "and  
grew a beard. Anyone can see that."

"And he has the tattoo!" Amy cried. "The  
eye tattoo, on his ankle! Look at the tattoo!"

Mr. Silver Poe looked at Stephano, and shrugged  
apologetically. "I'm sorry to ask you this," he  
said, "but the children seem so upset, and  
before we discuss anything further I'd like to  
set their minds at ease. Would you mind show-  
ing me your ankle?"

"I'd be happy to," Stephano said, giving the  
children a toothy smile. "Right or left?"

Tails closed his eyes and thought for a second. "Left," he said.

Stephano placed his left foot on the bumper  
of Uncle Knuckles' jeep. Looking at the  
orphans with his shiny, shiny eyes,  
he began to raise the leg of his stained striped  
pants. Tails, Amy, Sonic, and Mr. Silver Poe all kept  
their eyes on Stephano's ankle.

The pant leg went up, like a curtain rising to  
begin a play. But there was no tattoo of an eye  
to be seen. The orphans stared at a  
patch of smooth skin, as blank and pale as poor  
Uncle Knuckles' face.

CHAPTER

Eight

While the jeep sputtered ahead of them, the  
Hedge orphans trudged back toward Uncle  
Knuckles' house, the scent of horseradish in their  
nostrils and a feeling of frustration in  
their hearts. It is very unnerving  
to be proven wrong, particularly  
when you are really right and the  
person who is really wrong is the  
one who is proving you wrong and  
proving himself, wrongly, right. Right?

"I don't know how he got rid of  
his tattoo," Amy said stubbornly to  
Mr. Silver Poe, who was coughing into his  
handkerchief, "but that's definitely Count..."

"Amy," Mr. Poe said, when he had stopped  
coughing, "this is getting very tiresome, going  
over this again and again. We have just seen  
Stephano's unblemished ankle. 'Unblemished'  
means — "

"We know what 'unblemished' means,"  
Amy said, watching Stephano get out of Uncle  
Knuckles' jeep and walk quickly into the house.  
"'Without tattoos.' But it is Count Eggman. Why  
can't you see it?"

"All I can see," Mr. Silver Poe said, "is what's in  
front of me. I see a man with no eyebrows, a  
beard, and no tattoo, and that's not Count Eggman.  
Anyway, even if by some chance this Stephano  
wishes you harm, you have nothing to fear. It is  
quite shocking that Dr. Knuckles has died,  
but we're not simply going to hand over you and  
your fortune to his assistant. Why, this man can't  
even remember my name!"

Amy looked at her siblings and sighed. It would be easier, they realized, to argue with the snake-shaped hedge than with Mr. Silver Poe when  
he had made up his mind. Amy was about to  
try reasoning with him one more time when a  
horn honked behind them. The Hedges and  
Mr. Silver Poe got out of the way of the approaching  
automobile, a small gray car with a very skinny  
driver. The car stopped in front of the house and  
the skinny person got out, a tall fox in a white  
coat.

"May we help you?" Mr. Silver Poe called, as he and  
the children approached.

"I am Dr. Lucafont," the tall fox said, point-  
ing to himself with a big, solid hand. "I received  
a call that there's been a terrible accident involving a snake."

"You're here already?" Mr. Silver Poe asked. "But  
Stephano has scarcely had time to call, let alone  
for you to drive here."

"I believe that speed is of the essence in an  
emergency, don't you?" Dr. Lucafont said. "If an autopsy is to be performed, it should be done immediately."

"Of course, of course," Mr. SilverPoe said quickly.  
"I was just surprised."

"Where is the body?" Dr. Lucafont asked, walking toward the door.

"Stephano can tell you," Mr. Silver Poe said, opening the door of the house. Stephano was waiting in the entryway, holding a coffeepot.

"I'm going to make some coffee," he said.  
"Who wants some?"

"I'll have a cup," Dr. Lucafont said. "Nothing  
like a hearty cup of coffee before starting the  
day's work."

Mr. Poe frowned. "Shouldn't you take a look at Dr. Knuckles first?"

"Yes, Dr. Lucafont," Stephano said. "Time  
is of the essence in an emergency, don't you  
think?"

"Yes, yes, I suppose you're right," Dr.  
Lucafont said.

"Poor Dr. Knuckles is in the Reptile Room," Stephano said, gesturing to where the  
Hedges' guardian still lay. "Please do a thorough examination, and then you may have some  
coffee."

"You're the boss," Dr. Lucafont said, opening the door of the Reptile Room with an oddly stiff hand. Stephano led Mr. Poe into the  
kitchen, and the Hedges glumly followed.  
When one feels useless and unable to help, one  
can use the expression "feeling like a fifth  
wheel," because if something has four wheels,  
such as a wagon or a car, there is no real need  
for a fifth. As Stephano brewed coffee for the  
adults, the three children sat down at the  
kitchen table where they had first had coconut  
cake with Uncle Knuckles just a short time ago,  
and Tails, Amy, and Sonic felt like fifth, sixth,  
and seventh wheels on a car that was going  
the wrong direction — toward Hazy Harbor, and  
the departing Prospero.

"When I spoke to Dr. Lucafont on the phone,"  
Stephano said, "I told him about the accident with your car. When he is done with his medical examination, he will drive you into town to get a mechanic and I will stay here with the orphans."

"No," Tails said firmly. "We are not staying  
alone with him for an instant."

Mr. Silver Poe smiled as Stephano poured him a cup  
of coffee, and looked sternly at Tails. "Tails, I  
realize you are very upset, but it is inexcusable  
for you to keep treating Stephano so rudely.  
Please apologize to him at once."

"No!" Tails cried.

"That's quite all right, Mr. Gliver Yoe," Stephano  
said soothingly. "The children are upset over  
Dr. Knuckles' murder, so I don't expect  
them to be on their best behavior."

"Murder?" Amy said. She turned to Stephano  
and tried to look as if she were merely politely  
curious, instead of enraged. "Why did you say  
murder, Stephano?"

Stephano's face darkened, and his hands clenched at his sides. It looked like there was nothing he wanted to do more than scratch out  
Amy's eyes. "I misspoke," he said finally.

"Of course he did," Mr. Silver Poe said, sipping  
from his cup. "But the children can come with  
Dr. Lucafont and me if they feel more comfort-  
able that way."

"I'm not sure they will fit," Stephano said, his  
eyes shining. "It's a very small car. But if the  
orphans would rather, they could come with me  
in the jeep and we could follow you and Dr. Lucafont to the mechanic."

The three orphans looked at one another and  
thought hard. Their situation seemed like a  
game, although this game had desperately high  
stakes. The object of the game was not to end  
up alone with Stephano, for when they did, he  
would whisk them away on the Prospero. What  
would happen then, when they were alone in  
Peru with such a greedy and despicable person,  
they did not want to think about. What they had  
to think about was stopping it from happening.  
It seemed incredible that their very lives hinged  
on a carpooling conversation, but in life it is  
often the tiny details that end up being the most  
important.

"Why don't we ride with Dr. Lucafont,"  
Tails said carefully, "and Mr. Silver Poe can ride with  
Stephano?"

"Whatever for?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

"I've always wanted to see the inside of a  
doctor's automobile," Tails said, knowing that  
this was a fairly lame invention.

"Oh yes, me too," Amy said. "Please, can't  
we ride with Dr. Lucafont?"

"I'm afraid not," Dr. Lucafont said from  
the doorway, surprising everyone. "Not all three  
of you children, anyway. I have placed Dr.  
Knuckles' body in my car, which only  
leaves room for two more passengers."

"Have you completed your examination  
already?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

"The preliminary one, yes," Dr. Lucafont said.

"I will have to take the body for some further  
tests, but my autopsy shows that the doctor died  
of snakebite. Is there any coffee left for me?"

"Of course," Stephano answered, and poured  
him a cup.

"How can you be sure?" Tails asked the  
doctor.

"What do you mean?" Dr. Lucafont said  
quizzically. "I can be sure there's coffee left  
because I see it right here."

"What I think Tails means," Mr. Silver Poe said,  
"is how can you be sure that Dr. Knuckles died of snakebite?"

"In his veins, I found the venom of the  
Mamba du Mai, one of the world's most poisonous snakes."

"Does this mean that there's a poisonous  
snake loose in this house?" Mr. Poe asked.

"No, no," Dr. Lucafont said. "The Mamba du Mai is safe in its cage. It must have gotten out, bitten Dr. Knuckles, and locked itself  
up again."

"What?" Tails asked. "That's a ridiculous  
theory. A snake cannot operate a lock by itself."

"Perhaps other snakes helped it," Dr.  
Lucafont said calmly, sipping his coffee. "Is  
there anything here to eat? I had to rush over  
here without my breakfast."

"Your story does seem a little odd," Mr. Silver Poe  
said. He looked questioningly at Dr. Lucafont,  
who was opening a cupboard and peering inside.

"Terrible accidents, I have found, are often  
odd," he replied.

"It can't have been an accident," Amy said.  
"Uncle Knuckles is — " She stopped. "Uncle  
Knuckles was one of the world's most respected  
herpetologists. He never would have kept a poi-  
sonous snake in a cage it could open itself."

"If it wasn't an accident," Dr. Lucafont said,  
"then someone would have had to do this on  
purpose. Obviously, you three children didn't  
kill him, and the only other person in the house  
was Stephano."

"And I," Stephano added quickly, "hardly  
know anything about snakes. I've only been  
working here for two days and scarcely had time  
to learn anything."

"It certainly appears to be an accident," Mr. Silver  
Poe said. "I'm sorry, children. Dr. Knuckles  
seemed like an appropriate guardian for you."

"He was more than that," Amy said quietly.  
"He was much, much more than an appropriate  
guardian."

"That's Uncle Knuckles' food!" Tails cried out  
suddenly, his face contorted in anger. He pointed  
at Dr. Lucafont, who had taken a can out of the  
cupboard. "Stop eating his food!"

"I was only going to have a few peaches," Dr.  
Lucafont said. With one of his oddly solid  
hands, he held up a can of peaches Uncle Knuckles  
had bought only yesterday.

"Please," Mr. Silver Poe said gently to Dr. Lucafont.  
"The children are very upset. I'm sure you can  
understand that. Tails, Amy and Sonic why don't you excuse yourselves for a little while? We have much to discuss, and you are obviously too  
overwrought to participate. Now, Dr. Lucafont,  
let's try and figure this out. You have room for  
three passengers, including Dr. Knuckles'  
body. And you, Stephano, have room for three  
passengers as well."

"So it's very simple," Stephano said. "You and  
the corpse will go in Dr. Lucafont's car, and I  
will drive behind you with the children."

"No," Amy said firmly.

"Children," Mr. Silver Poe said, just as firmly,  
"will you three please excuse yourselves?"

"Afoop!" Sonic shrieked, which probably  
meant "No."

"Of course we will," Tails said, giving Amy  
and Sonic a significant look, and taking his siblings' hands, he half-led them, half-dragged them out of the kitchen. Amy and Sonic looked up at their older brother, and saw that something about him had changed. His face  
looked more determined than grief-stricken,  
and she walked quickly, as if she were late for  
something.

You will remember, of course, that even years  
later, Amy would lie awake in bed, filled with  
regret that she didn't call out to the driver of the  
taxicab who had brought Stephano into their  
lives once more. But in this respect Tails was  
luckier than his sister. For unlike Amy, who  
was so surprised when she first recognized  
Stephano that the moment to act passed her by,  
Tails realized, as he heard the adults drone on  
and on, that the time to act was now. I cannot  
say that Tails, years later, slept easily when he  
looked back on his life- — there were too many  
miserable times for any of the Hedges to  
be peaceful sleepers — but he was always a  
bit proud of himself that he realized he and  
his siblings should in fact excuse themselves  
from the kitchen and move to a more helpful  
location.

"What are we doing?" Amy asked. "Where  
are we going?" Sonic, too, looked questioningly  
at his brother, but Tails merely shook his head  
in answer, and walked faster, toward the door of  
the Reptile Room.

CHAPTER

Nine

When Tails opened the enormous door  
of the Reptile Room, the reptiles  
were still there in their cages, the  
books were still on their shelves,  
and the morning sun was still  
streaming through the glass walls, but the  
place simply wasn't the same. Even though  
Dr. Lucafont had removed Uncle Knuckles'  
body, the Reptile Room was not as inviting as it used to be, and probably never  
would be. What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired, a word which here means "happened and made every-  
body sad."

"I don't want to go in," Amy said. "Uncle  
Knuckles died in here."

"I know we don't want to be here," Tails  
said, "but we have work to do."

"Work?" Amy asked. "What work?"

Tails gritted his teeth. "We have work to  
do," he said, "that Mr. Silver Poe should be doing,  
but as usual, he is well intentioned but of no  
real help." Amy and Sonic sighed as he spoke  
out loud a sentiment all three siblings had never  
said, but always felt, since Mr. Silver Poe had taken  
over their affairs. "Mr. Silver Poe doesn't believe that  
Stephano and Count Eggman are the same person.  
And he believes that Uncle Knuckles' death was  
an accident. We have to prove him wrong on  
both counts."

"But Stephano doesn't have the tattoo,"  
Amy pointed out. "And Dr. Lucafont found the venom of the Mamba du Mai in Knuckles' veins."

"I know, I know," Tails said impatiently.  
"The three of us know the truth, but in order  
to convince the adults, we have to find evidence  
and proof of Stephano's plan."

"If only we'd found evidence and proof earlier," Amy said glumly. "Then maybe we could have saved Uncle Knuckles' life."

"We'll never know about that," Tails said  
quietly. He looked around at the Reptile Room,  
which Knuckles had worked on his whole life.  
"But if we put Stephano behind bars for his  
murder, we'll at least be able to prevent him  
from harming anyone else."

"Including us," Amy pointed out.

"Including us," Tails agreed. "Now, Amy,  
find all of Uncle Knuckles' books that might contain information about the Mamba du Mai. Let me know when you find anything."

"But all that research could take days," Amy  
said, looking at Knuckles' considerable library.

"Well, we don't have days," Tails said firmly.  
"We don't even have hours. At five o'clock, the  
Prospero leaves Hazy Harbor, and Stephano is  
going to do everything he can to make sure  
we're on that ship. And if we end up alone in  
Peru with him — "

"All right, all right," Amy said. "Let's get  
started. Here, you take this book."

"I'm not taking any book," Tails said.  
"While you're in the library, I'm going up to  
Stephano's room to see if I can find any clues."

"Alone?" Amy asked. "In his room?"

"It'll be perfectly safe," Tails said, although  
he knew nothing of the kind. "Get cracking  
with the books, Amy. Sonic, watch the door  
and run up and bite anybody who tries to get in."

"Ackroid!" Sonic said, which probably meant something like "Roger!"

Tails left, and true to his word, Sonic sat  
near the door with his teeth bared. Amy  
walked to the far end of the room where the  
library was, carefully avoiding the aisle where  
the poisonous snakes were kept. He didn't even  
want to look at the Mamba du Mai or any other  
deadly reptile. Even though Amy knew that  
Uncle Knuckles' death was the fault of Stephano  
and not really of the snake, she could not bear to  
look at the reptile who had put an end to the  
happy times she and her brothers had enjoyed.  
Amy sighed, and opened a book, and as at so  
many other times when the middle Hedge child did not want to think about her circumstances, he began to read.

It is now necessary for me to use the rather  
hackneyed phrase "meanwhile, back at the  
ranch." The word "hackneyed" here means  
"used by so, so many writers that by the time  
I uses it, it is a tiresome cliche."  
"Meanwhile, back at the ranch" is a phrase used  
to link what is going on in one part of the story to  
what is going on in another part of the story, and  
it has nothing to do with cows or with horses or  
with any people who work in rural areas where  
ranches are, or even with ranch dressing, which is creamy and put on salads. Here, the phrase "meanwhile, back at the ranch" refers to what  
Tails was doing while Amy and Sonic were  
in the Reptile Room. For as Amy began her  
research in Uncle Knuckles' library, and Sonic  
guarded the door with his sharp teeth, Tails  
was up to something I am sure will be of interest to you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tails went to  
listen at the kitchen door, trying to catch what  
the adults were saying. As I'm sure you know,  
the key to good eavesdropping is not getting  
caught, and Tails, when he reached the door of the  
kitchen, he took a pen out of his pocket and dropped it on the floor, so if anyone  
opened the door he could claim that she was  
kneeling down to pick it up, rather than to  
eavesdrop. This was a trick he had learned  
when he was very small, when he would listen at her parents' bedroom door to hear what they might be planning for his birthday, and  
like all good tricks, it still worked.

"But Mr. Silver Poe, if Stephano rides with me in  
my car, and you drive Dr. Knuckles' jeep,"  
Dr. Lucafont was saying, "then how will you  
know the way?"

"I see your point," Mr. Silver Poe said. "But I don't  
think Sonic will be willing to sit on Dr.  
Knuckles' lap, if he's dead. We'll have to  
work out another way."

"I've got it," Stephano said. "I will drive the  
children in Dr. Lucafont's car, and Dr. Lucafont  
can go with you and Dr. Knuckles in Dr.  
Knuckles' jeep."

"I'm afraid that won't work," Dr. Lucafont  
said gravely. "The city laws won't allow anybody  
else to drive my car."

"And we haven't even discussed the issue of  
the children's luggage," Mr. Silver Poe said.

Tails stood up, having heard enough to know  
he had enough time to go up to Stephano's room.  
Quietly, quietly, Tails walked up the staircase and down the hallway toward Stephano's door, where he had sat holding the knife that fearsome night. When he reached his door, Tails stopped. It was amazing, he thought, how  
everything having to do with Count Eggman was frightening. He was such a terrible person that merely the sight of his bedroom door could  
get his heart pounding. Tails found himself  
half hoping that Stephano would bound up the  
stairs and stop him , just so he wouldn't have  
to open this door and go into the room where  
he slept. But then Tails thought of his own  
safety, and the safety of his two siblings. If  
one's safety is threatened, one often finds courage one didn't know one had, and the eldest Hedge found he could be brave enough to open the door. His shoulder still aching from the car collision, Tails turned the brass handle  
of the door and walked inside.

The room, as Tails suspected, was a dirty  
mess. The bed was unmade and had cracker  
crumbs and bits of hair and quills all over it. Discarded newspapers and mail-order catalogs lay on the floor in untidy piles. On top of the dresser was  
a small assortment of half-empty wine bottles.  
The closet door was open, revealing a bunch of  
rusty wire coathangers that shivered in the  
drafty room. The curtains over the windows  
were all bunched up and encrusted with some-  
thing flaky, and as Tails drew closer he realized with faint horror that Stephano had blown his nose on them.

But although it was disgusting, hardened  
phlegm was not the sort of evidence Tails was  
hoping for. The eldest Hedge orphan stood  
in the center of the room and surveyed the sticky  
disorder of the bedroom. Everything was horren-  
dous, nothing was helpful. Tails rubbed his sore  
shoulder and remembered when he and his siblings were living with Count Eggman and found themselves locked in his tower room. Although it  
was frightening to be trapped in his inner sanc-  
tum — a phrase which here means "filthy room in  
which evil plans are devised" — it turned out to  
be quite useful, because they were able to read  
up on nuptial law and work their way out of  
their predicament. But here, in Stephanos inner  
sanctum at Uncle Knuckles' house, all Tails could  
find were signs of uncleanliness. Somewhere  
Stephano must have left a trail of evidence that  
Tails could find and use to convince Mr. Silver Poe,  
but where was it? Disheartened — and afraid he  
had spent too much time in Stephano's bed-  
room — Tails went quietly back downstairs.

"No, no, no," Mr. Silver Poe was saying, when he  
stopped to listen at the kitchen door again. "Dr.  
Knuckles can't drive. He's dead. There must  
be a way to do this."

"I've told you over and over," Stephano said,  
and Tails could tell that he was growing angry.  
"The easiest way is for me to take the three  
children into town, while you follow with  
Dr. Lucafont and the corpse. What could be  
simpler?"

"Perhaps you're right," Mr. Silver Poe said with a  
sigh, and Tails hurried into the Reptile Room.  
"Amy, Amy!," he cried. "Tell me you've  
found something! I went to Stephano's room  
but there's nothing there to help us, and I think  
Stephano's going to get us alone in his car."

Amy smiled for an answer and began to read  
out loud from the book she was holding. "'The  
Mamba du Mai,'" he read, "'is one of the deadliest snakes in the hemisphere, noted for its strangulatory grip, used in conjunction with its  
deadly venom, giving all of its victims a tene-  
brous hue, which is ghastly to behold.'"

"Strangulatory? Conjunction? Tenebrous?  
Hue?" Tails repeated. "I have no idea what  
you're talking about."

"I didn't either," Amy admitted, "until I  
looked up some of the words. 'Strangulatory'  
means 'having to do with strangling.' 'In con-  
junction' means 'together.' 'Tenebrous' means  
'dark.' And 'hue' means 'color.' So the Mamba  
du Mai is noted for strangling people while  
it bites them, leaving their corpses dark with  
bruises."

"Stop! Stop!" Tails cried, covering his ears.  
"I don't want to hear any more about what hap-  
pened to Uncle Knuckles!"

"You don't understand," Amy said gently.  
"That isn't what happened to Uncle Knuckles."

"But Dr. Lucafont said there was the venom  
of the Mamba du Mai in Knuckles' veins," he  
said.

"I'm sure there was," Amy said, "but the  
snake didn't put it there. If it had, Uncle Knuckles'  
body would have been dark with bruises. But  
you and I remember that it was as pale as  
can be."

Tails started to speak, and then stopped,  
remembering the pale, pale face of Uncle Knuckles  
when they discovered him. "That's true," he  
said. "But then how was he poisoned?"

"Remember how Uncle Knuckles said he kept  
the venoms of all his poisonous snakes in test  
tubes, to study them?" Amy said. "I think  
Stephano took the venom and injected it into  
Uncle Knuckles."

"Really?" Tails shuddered. "That's awful."  
"Okipi!" Sonic shrieked, apparently in  
agreement.

"When we tell Mr. Silver Poe about this," Amy said  
confidently, "Stephano will be arrested for  
Uncle Knuckles' murder and sent to jail. No  
longer will he try to whisk us away to Peru, or  
threaten us with knives, or make us carry his  
suitcase, or anything like that."

Tails looked at his sister, his eyes wide  
with excitement. "Suitcase!" he said. "His  
suitcase!"

"What are you talking about?" Amy said  
quizzically, and Tails was about to explain  
when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Tails called, signaling to Sonic  
not to bite Mr. Silver Poe as he walked in.

"I hope you are feeling a bit calmer," Mr. Silver Poe  
said, looking at each of the children in turn,  
"and no longer entertaining the thought that  
Stephano is Count Eggman." When Mr. Silver Poe used the  
word "entertaining" here he meant "thinking," rather than "singing or dancing or putting on skits."

"Even if he's not Count Eggman," Amy said  
carefully, "we think he may be responsible for  
Uncle Knuckles' death."

"Nonsense!" Mr. Silver Poe exclaimed, as Tails  
shook his head at his sister. "Uncle Knuckles'  
death was a terrible accident, and nothing  
more."

Amy held up the book she was reading. "But  
while you were in the kitchen, we were reading  
about snakes, and — "

"Reading about snakes?" Mr. Silver Poe said. "I  
should think you'd want to read about any-  
thing but snakes, after what happened to Dr.  
Knuckles."

"But I found out something," Amy said,  
"that—"

"It doesn't matter what you found out about  
snakes," Mr. Silver Poe said, taking out a handker-  
chief. The Hedges waited while he coughed  
into it before returning it to his pocket. "It doesn't matter," he said again, "what you found out about snakes. Stephano doesn't know anything about snakes. He told us that himself."

"But — " Amy said, but she stopped when she  
saw Tails. He shook his head at her again,  
just slightly. It was a signal, telling her not to  
say anything more to Mr. Silver. She looked at her  
brother, and then at Mr. Silver Poe, and shut her mouth.

Mr. Silver Poe coughed slightly into his handkerchief and looked at his wristwatch. "Now that we have settled that matter, there is the issue of riding in the car. I know that the three of you were eager to see the inside of a doctor's automobile, but we've discussed it over and over  
and there's simply no way it can work. You three  
are going to ride with Stephano into town, while  
I will ride with Dr. Lucafont and your Uncle  
Knuckles. Stephano and Dr. Lucafont are unloading all the bags now and we will leave in a few minutes. If you will excuse me, I have to call  
the Herpetological Society and tell them the  
bad news." Mr. Silver Poe coughed once more into his handkerchief and left the room.

"Why didn't you want me to tell Mr. Silver Poe what  
I read?" Amy asked Tails, when she was sure  
Mr. Silver Poe was out of earshot, a word which here  
means "close enough to hear her." Tails  
didn't answer. He was looking through the  
glass wall of the Reptile Room, watching Dr.  
Lucafont and Stephano walk past the snake-  
shaped hedges to Uncle Knuckles' jeep. Stephano  
opened the jeep door, and Dr. Lucafont began  
to carry suitcases out of the backseat in his  
strangely stiff hands. "Tails, why didn't you  
want me to tell Mr. Poe what I read?"

"When the adults come to fetch us," Tails  
said, ignoring Amy's question, "keep them in  
the Reptile Room until I get back."

"But how will I do that?" Amy asked.

"Create a distraction," Tails answered impatiently, still looking out the window at the little pile of suitcases Dr. Lucafont was making.

"What distraction?" Amy asked anxiously.  
"How?"

"For goodness' sake, Amy," his older brother  
replied. "You have read hundreds of books.  
Surely you must have read something about cre-  
ating a distraction."

Amy thought for a second. "In order to win  
the Trojan War," she said, "the ancient Greeks  
hid soldiers inside an enormous wooden horse.  
That was sort of a distraction. But I don't have  
time to build a wooden horse."

"Then you'll have to think of something  
else," Tails said, and began to walk toward the  
door, still gazing out the window. Amy and  
Sonic looked first at their brother, and then out  
the window of the Reptile Room in the direc-  
tion she was looking. It is remarkable that dif-  
ferent people will have different thoughts when  
they look at the same thing. For when the two  
younger Hedges looked at the pile of suit-  
cases, all they thought was that unless they did  
something quickly, they would end up alone in  
Uncle Knuckles' jeep with Stephano. But from  
the way Tails was staring as he walked out of  
the Reptile Room, she was obviously thinking  
something else. Amy and Sonic could not  
imagine what it was, but somehow their brother  
had reached a different conclusion as he looked  
at his own brown suitcase, or perhaps the beige  
one that held Amy's things, or the tiny gray one  
that was Sonic's, or maybe the large black one,  
with the shiny silver padlock, that belonged to  
Stephano.

CHAPTER

Ten

When you were very small, perhaps someone  
read to you the insipid story — the word "insipid"  
here means "not worth reading to someone" —  
of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. A very dull boy, you  
may remember, cried "Wolf!" when there was  
no wolf, and the gullible villagers ran to rescue  
him only to find the whole thing was a joke.  
Then he cried "Wolf!" when it wasn't a joke,  
and the villagers didn't come running, and the  
boy was eaten and the story, thank goodness,

The story's moral, of course, ought to be  
"Never live somewhere where wolves are running around loose," but whoever read you the  
story probably told you that the moral was not  
to lie. This is an absurd moral, for you and I both  
know that sometimes not only is it good to lie,  
it is necessary to lie. For example, it was perfectly appropriate, after Tails left the Reptile Room, for Sonic to crawl over to the cage that  
held the Incredibly Deadly Viper, unlatch the  
cage, and begin screaming as loudly as he could  
even though nothing was really wrong.

There is another story concerning wolves that  
somebody has probably read to you, which is  
just as absurd. I am talking about Little Red  
Riding Hood, an extremely unpleasant little girl  
who, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, insisted on  
intruding on the territory of dangerous animals.  
You will recall that the wolf, after being treated  
very rudely by Little Red Riding Hood, ate the  
little girl's grandmother and put on her clothing  
as a disguise. It is this aspect of the story that is the most ridiculous, because one would think  
that even a girl as dim-witted as Little Red  
Riding Hood could tell in an instant the differ-  
ence between her grandmother and a wolf  
dressed in a nightgown and fuzzy slippers. If  
you know somebody very well, like your grand-  
mother or your baby sister, you will know when  
they are real and when they are fake. This is  
why, as Sonic began to scream, Tails and Amy  
could tell immediately that his scream was  
absolutely fake.

"That scream is absolutely fake," Amy said  
to herself, from the other end of the Reptile  
Room.

"That scream is absolutely fake," Tails said  
to himself, from the stairs as he went up to his  
room.

"My Lord! Something is terribly wrong!" Mr.  
Silver Poe said to himself, from the kitchen where he  
was talking on the phone. "Good-bye," he said  
into the receiver, hung up, and ran out of the  
kitchen to see what the matter was.

"What's the matter?" Mr. Silver Poe asked Stephano  
and Dr. Lucafont, who had finished unloading  
the suitcases and were entering the house. "I  
heard some screams coming from the Reptile  
Room."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Stephano said.  
"You know how children are," Dr. Lucafont  
said.

"We can't have another tragedy on our hands,"  
Mr. Silver Poe said, and rushed to the enormous door  
of the Reptile Room. "Children! Children!"

"In here!" Amy cried. "Come quickly!" her  
voice was rough and low, and anyone who  
didn't know Amy would think she was very  
frightened. If you know Amy, however, you  
would know that when she was very frightened  
her voice became tense and squeaky, as it did  
when she discovered Uncle Knuckles' body. Her  
voice became rough and low when she was trying not to laugh. It is a very good thing that Amy managed not to laugh as Mr. Silver Poe, Stephano, and

Dr. Lucafont came into the Reptile Room. It  
would have spoiled everything.

Sonic was lying down on the marble floor,  
her tiny arms and legs waving wildly as if he  
were trying to swim. His facial expression was  
what made Amy want to chuckle. Sonic's  
mouth was wide open, showing his four sharp  
teeth, his red running shoes had flew off and his eyes were blinking rapidly. He  
was trying to appear to be very frightened, and  
if you didn't know Sonic it would have seemed  
genuine. But Amy did know Sonic, and knew  
that when he was very frightened, his face  
grew all puckered and silent, as it did when  
Stephano had threatened to cut off one of his  
toes. To anyone but Amy, Sonic looked as if  
he were very frightened, particularly because  
of who he was with. For wrapped around  
Sonic's small body was a snake, as dark as a coal  
mine and as thick as a sewer pipe. It was looking at Sonic with shiny green eyes, and its mouth was open as if it were about to bite him.

"The Incredibly Deadly Viper!" Amy cried.  
"It's going to bite him!" Amy screamed, and  
Sonic opened his mouth and eyes even wider  
to seem even more scared. Dr. Lucafont's  
mouth opened too, and Amy saw him start to  
say something, but he was unable to find words.  
Stephano, who of course could not have cared  
less about Sonic's well-being, at least looked  
surprised, but it was Mr. Silver Poe who absolutely  
panicked.

There are two basic types of panicking:  
standing still and not saying a word, and leaping all over the place babbling anything that  
comes into your head. Mr. Poe was the leaping-  
and-babbling kind. Amy and Sonic had never  
seen the banker move so quickly or talk in such  
a high-pitched voice. "Goodness!" he cried.  
"Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and  
Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne!  
Don't touch him! Grab him! Move closer! Run  
away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it  
alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite him!  
Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here,  
snakey snakey!"

The Incredibly Deadly Viper listened  
patiently to Mr. Silver Poe's speech, never taking its  
eyes off of Sonic, and when Mr. Silver Poe paused to  
cough into his handkerchief, it leaned over and  
bit Sonic on the chin, right where it had bitten  
her when the two friends had first met. Amy  
tried not to grin, but Dr. Lucafont gasped,  
Stephano stared, and Mr. Silver Poe began leaping and  
babbling again.

"It's bitten him!" he cried. "It bit him! It bited  
him! Calm down! Get moving! Call an ambulance! Call the police! Call a scientist! Call my wife! This is terrible! This is awful! This is  
ghastly! This is phantasmagorical! This is — "

"This is nothing to worry about," Stephano  
interrupted smoothly.

"What do you mean, nothing to worry  
about?" Mr. Silver Poe asked incredulously. "Sonic  
was just bitten by — what's the name of the  
snake, Amy?"

"The Incredibly Deadly Viper," Amy  
answered promptly.

"The Incredibly Deadly Viper!" Mr. Silver Poe  
repeated, pointing to the snake as it held on to  
Sonic's chin with its teeth. Sonic gave another  
fake shriek of fear. "How can you say it's noth-  
ing to worry about?"

"Because the Incredibly Deadly Viper is  
completely harmless," Stephano said. "Calm  
yourself, Poe. The snake's name is a misnomer  
that Dr. Knuckles created for his own  
amusement."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Silver Poe asked. His voice got  
a little lower, and he moved a bit more slowly  
as he began to calm down.

"Of course I'm sure," Stephano said, and  
Amy recognized a look on his face he remem-  
bered from living at Count Eggman's. It was a look  
of sheer vanity, a word which here means  
"Count Eggman thinking he's the most incredible  
person who ever lived." When the Hedge  
orphans had been under Eggman's care, he had often acted this way, always happy to show off  
his skills, whether he was onstage with his atro-  
cious theater company or up in his tower room  
making nasty plans. Stephano smiled, and con-  
tinued to speak to Mr. Silver Poe, eager to show off.  
"The snake is perfectly harmless — friendly,  
even. I read up on the Incredibly Deadly Viper,  
and many other snakes, in the library section of  
the Reptile Room as well as Dr. Knuckles'  
private papers."

Dr. Lucafont cleared his throat. "Uh, boss — "  
he said.

"Don't interrupt me, Dr. Lucafont,"  
Stephano said. "I studied books on all the major  
species. I looked carefully at sketches and  
charts. I took careful notes and looked them  
over each night before I went to sleep. If I may  
say so, I consider myself to be quite the expert  
on snakes."

"Aha!" Sonic cried, disentangling herself  
from the Incredibly Deadly Viper.

"Sonic! You're unharmed!" Mr. Silver Poe cried.

"Aha!" Sonic cried again, pointing at  
Stephano. The Incredibly Deadly Viper blinked  
its green eyes triumphantly.

Mr. Silver Poe looked at Amy, puzzled. "What does  
your brother mean by 'Aha'?" he asked.

Amy sighed. She felt, sometimes, as if she  
had spent half his life explaining things to Mr. Silver Poe. "By 'Aha,'" he said, "he means 'One minute' Stephano claims he knows nothing about  
snakes, the next he claims he is an expert! By  
'Aha' he means 'Stephano has been lying to us.'  
By 'Aha' he means 'we've finally exposed his  
dishonesty to you!' By 'Aha' she means 'Aha!'"

CHAPTER

Eleven

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tails was  
upstairs, surveying his bedroom with a  
critical eye. He took a deep breath, and  
then tied his bangs in a ribbon, to keep it  
out of his eyes. As you and I and everyone  
who is familiar with Tails know, when  
he ties his hair back like that, it is because  
he needs to think up an invention. And  
right now he needed to think of one  
quickly.

Tails had realized, when his sister  
had talked about Stephano ordering  
them to carry his suitcase into the  
house, that the evidence she had been looking for was undoubtedly in that very suitcase.  
And now, while his siblings were distract-  
ing the adults in the Reptile Room, would  
be his only opportunity to open the suitcase  
and retrieve proof of Stephano's evil plot.  
But his aching shoulder was a reminder that  
he couldn't simply open the suitcase — it was  
locked, with a lock as shiny as Stephano's  
scheming eyes. I confess that if I were in Tails'  
place, with only a few minutes to open a locked  
suitcase, instead of on the deck of my friend  
Bela's yacht, writing this down, I probably  
would have given up hope. I would have sunk  
to the floor of the bedroom and pounded  
my fists against the carpet wondering why in  
the world life was so unfair and filled with  
inconveniences.

Luckily for the Hedges', however, Tails  
was made of sterner stuff, and he took a good  
look around his bedroom for anything that

might help him. There wasn't much in the way  
of inventing materials. Tails longed for a good  
room in which to invent things, filled with  
wires and gears and all of the necessary equip-  
ment to invent really top-notch devices. Uncle  
Knuckles was in fact in possession of many of  
these supplies, but, to Tails' frustration as  
he thought of this, they were located in the  
Reptile Room. He looked at the pieces of  
butcher paper tacked to the wall, where he  
had hoped to sketch out inventions as he lived  
in Uncle Knuckles' house. The trouble had  
begun so quickly that Tails had only a few  
scribblings on one of the sheets, which he had  
written by the light of a floorlamp on his first  
night here. Tails' eyes traveled to the floor-  
lamp as he remembered that evening, and  
when he reached the electric socket he had  
an idea.

We all know, of course, that we should never,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, _ever_ fiddle around in any way with electric  
devices. _Never_. There are two reasons for this.  
One is that you can get electrocuted, which is  
not only deadly but very unpleasant, and can cause death, and the  
other is that you are not Miles Tails Prower Hedge, one  
of the people in the world who know how  
to handle such things. And even Tails was very  
careful and nervous as he unplugged the lamp  
and took a long look at the plug itself. It might  
work.

Hoping that Amy and Sonic were continuing to stall the adults successfully, Tails wiggled the two prongs of the plug this way and  
that until at last they came loose from their plas-  
tic casing. He now had two small metal strips.  
Tails then took one of the thumbtacks out  
of the butcher paper, letting the paper curl  
down the wall as if it were lazy. With the sharp  
end of the tack she poked and prodded the two  
pieces of metal until one was hooked around the  
other, and then forced the thumbtack between  
the two pieces so the sharp end stuck straight out. The result looked like a piece of metal you  
might not notice if it lay in the street, but in fact  
what Tails had made was a crude — the word  
"crude" here means "roughly made at the last  
minute" rather than "rude or ill-mannered" —  
lockpick. Lockpicks, as you probably know, are  
devices that work as if they were proper keys,  
usually used by bad guys to rob houses or escape  
from jail, but this was one of the rare times  
when a lockpick was being used by a good guy:  
Miles Tails Prower Hedge.

Tails walked quietly back down the stairs,  
holding his lockpick in one hand and crossing  
his fingers with the other. He tiptoed past the  
enormous door of the Reptile Room and hoped  
that his absence would not be noticed as he  
slipped outside. Deliberately averting his eyes  
from Dr. Lucafont's car to avoid catching even  
a glimpse of Uncle Knuckles' body, the eldest  
Hedge walked toward the pile of suitcases.  
He looked first at the old ones belonging to  
the Hedges. Those suitcases contained, he  
remembered, lots of ugly, itchy clothing that  
Mrs. Poe had bought for them soon after their  
parents died. For a few seconds, Tails found  
herself staring at the suitcases, remembering  
how effortless his life had been before all this  
trouble had set upon them, and how surprising  
it was to find herself in such miserable circum-  
stances now. This may not be surprising to us,  
because we know how disastrous the lives of the  
Hedge orphans are, but Tails' misfortune  
was constantly surprising to him and it took him  
a minute to push thoughts of their situation out  
of his head and to concentrate on what he had  
to do.

He knelt down to get closer to Stephano's  
suitcase, held the shiny silver padlock in one  
hand, took a deep breath, and stuck the lock-  
pick into the keyhole. It went inside, but when  
she tried to turn it around, it scarcely budged,  
only scraped a little at the inside of the keyhole.  
It needed to move more smoothly or it would  
never work. Tails took his lockpick out and wet it with his mouth, grimacing at the stale taste of the metal. Then he stuck the lockpick  
into the keyhole again and tried to move it. It  
wiggled slightly and then lay still.

Tails took the lockpick out and thought very,  
very hard, retying his bangs in the ribbon. As he  
cleared the bangs from his eyes, though, he felt  
a sudden prickle on his skin. It was unpleas-  
ant and familiar. It was the feeling of being  
watched. He looked quickly behind her, but  
saw only the snake-shaped hedges on the lawn.  
He looked to the side and saw only the drive-  
way leading down to Lousy Lane. But then she  
looked straight ahead, through the glass walls of  
the Reptile Room.

It had never occurred to him that people could  
see in through the Reptile Room's walls as clearly  
as they could see out, but when he looked  
up Tails could see, through the cages of rep-  
tiles, the figure of Mr. Silver Poe leaping up and down  
excitedly. You and I know, of course, that Mr.  
Silver Poe was panicking over Sonic and the Incredibly Deadly Viper, but all Tails knew was that whatever ruse his younger siblings had devised was still  
working. The prickle on his skin was not explained, however, until he looked a little closer, just to the right of Mr. Poe, and saw that Stephano was looking right back at him.

His mouth fell open in surprise and panic.  
He knew that any second now, Stephano would  
invent an excuse to leave the Reptile Room and  
come find him, and he hadn't even opened the  
suitcase. Quickly, quickly, quickly, he had to  
find some way to make his lockpick work. He  
looked down at the damp gravel of the drive-  
way, and up at the dim, yellowish afternoon sun.  
He looked at her own hands, smudged with  
dust from picking apart the electric plug, and  
that's when she thought of something.

Jumping to his feet, Tails sprinted back into  
the house as if Stephano were already after him  
and pushed him way through the door into the  
kitchen. Shoving a chair to the floor in his haste,  
he grabbed a bar of soap from the dripping

sink. He rubbed the slippery substance care-  
fully over his lockpick until the entire invention  
had a thin, slick coating. His heart pounding in  
his chest, he ran back outside, taking a hurried  
look through the walls of the Reptile Room.  
Stephano was saying something to Mr. Silver Poe — he  
was bragging about his expertise of snakes, but  
Tails had no way of knowing that — and Tails  
took this moment to kneel down and stick the  
lockpick back into the keyhole of the padlock.  
It spun quickly all the way around and then  
snapped in two, right in his hands. There was  
a faint sputter of sound as one half fell to the  
grass, the other one sticking in the keyhole like  
a jagged tooth. His lockpick was destroyed.

Tails closed his eyes for a moment in  
despair, and then pulled herself to his feet,  
using the suitcase to gain his balance. When he  
put his hand on the suitcase, however, the pad-  
lock swung open, and the case tipped open and  
spilled everything all over the ground. Tails fell back down in surprise. Somehow, as the lockpick turned, it must have unstuck the lock.  
Sometimes even in the most unfortunate of  
lives there will occur a moment or two of good  
fortune.

It is very difficult, experts have told us, to  
find a needle in a haystack, which is why "nee-  
dle in a haystack" has become a rather hack-  
neyed phrase meaning "something that is  
difficult to find." The reason it is difficult to  
find a needle in a haystack, of course, is that out  
of all the things in a haystack, the needle is only  
one of them. If, however, you were looking for  
anything in a haystack, that wouldn't be difficult  
at all, because once you started sifting through  
the haystack you would most certainly find  
something: hay, of course, but also dirt, bugs, a  
few farming tools, and maybe even a man who  
had escaped from prison and was hiding there, trying his best to write down what happened to the Hedge orphans.  
When Tails searched through the contents of  
Stephanos suitcase, it was more like looking for anything in a haystack, because he didn't know exactly what she wanted to find. Therefore it  
was actually fairly easy to find useful items of  
evidence: a glass vial with a sealed rubber cap,  
as one might find in a scientific laboratory; a  
syringe with a sharp needle, like the one your  
doctor uses to give you shots; a small bunch of  
folded papers; a card laminated in plastic; a pow-  
der puff and small hand mirror.

Even though he knew he had only a few  
more moments, Tails separated these items  
from the smelly clothes and the bottle of wine  
that were also in the suitcase, and looked at all  
his evidence very carefully, concentrating on  
each item as if they were small parts out of  
which he was going to make a machine. And in  
a way, they were. Tails Hedge needed to  
arrange these pieces of evidence to defeat  
Stephano's evil plan and bring justice and peace  
into the lives of the Hedge orphans for the  
first time since their parents perished in the terrible fire. Tails gazed at each piece of evidence, thinking very hard, and before too long, his face  
lit up the way it always did when all the pieces  
of something were fit together properly and the  
machine worked just the way it should.

CHAPTER

Twelve

I promise you that this is the last time that I  
will use the phrase "meanwhile, back at the  
ranch," but I can think of no other way to return  
to the moment when Amy has just explained  
to Mr. Silver Poe what Sonic had meant by shouting  
u Aha!" and now everyone in the Reptile Room  
was staring at Stephano. Sonic looked triumphant. Amy looked defiant. Mr. Silver Poe looked furious. Dr. Lucafont looked perplexed, a word which here means, 'shockerd' or 'starteled' or 'worried'. You couldn't tell how the Incredibly Deadly Viper  
looked, because the facial expressions of snakes  
are difficult to read. Stephano looked back at all  
these people silently, his face fluttering as he  
tried to decide whether to come clean, a phrase  
which here means "admit that he's really Count  
Eggman and up to no good," or perpetuate his  
deception, a phrase which here means "lie, lie,  
lie."

"Stephano," Mr. Silver Poe said, and coughed into  
his handkerchief. Amy and Sonic waited  
impatiently for him to continue. "Stephano,  
explain yourself. You have just told us that you  
are an expert on snakes. Previously, however,  
you told us you knew nothing of snakes, and  
therefore couldn't have been involved in Dr.  
Knuckles' death. What is going on?"

"When I told you I knew nothing of snakes,"  
Stephano said, "I was being modest. Now, if you  
will excuse me, I have to go outside for a  
moment, and — "

"You weren't being modest!" Amy cried. "You were lying! And you are lying now! You're  
nothing but a liar and murderer!"

Stephano's eyes grew wide and his face  
clouded in anger. "You have no evidence of  
that," he said.

"Yes we do," said a voice in the doorway, and  
everyone turned around to find Tails standing  
there, with a smile on his face and evidence in  
her arms. Triumphantly, he walked across the  
Reptile Room to the far end, where the books  
Amy had been reading about the Mamba du  
Mai were still stacked in a pile. The others followed him, walking down the aisles of reptiles.  
Silently, he arranged the objects in a line on  
top of a table: the glass vial with the sealed rub-  
ber cap, the syringe with the sharp needle, the  
small bunch of folded papers, a card laminated  
in plastic, the powder puff and the small hand  
mirror.

"What is all this?" Mr. Silver Poe said, gesturing to  
the arrangement.

"This," Tails said, "is evidence, which I found in Stephano's suitcase."

"My suitcase," Stephano said, "is private  
property, which you are not allowed to touch. It's  
very rude of you, and besides, it was locked."

"It was an emergency," Tails said calmly, "so  
I picked the lock."

"How did you do that?" Mr. Silver Poe asked. "Nice  
boys shouldn't know how to do such things. Only mischievous ones"

"My brother is a nice boy," Amy said, "and he  
knows how to do all sorts of things."

"Roofik!" Sonic agreed.

"Well, we'll discuss that later," Mr. Silver Poe said.  
"In the meantime, please continue."

"When Uncle Knuckles died," Tails began,  
"my siblings and I were very sad, but we were  
also very suspicious."

"We weren't suspicious!" Amy exclaimed. "If  
someone is suspicious, it means they're not sure!  
We were positive that Stephano killed him!"

"Nonsense!" Dr. Lucafont said. "As I ex-  
plained to all of you, Knuckles Knuckles' death was an accident. The Mamba du Mai  
escaped from its cage and bit him, and that's all there is to it."

"I beg your pardon," Tails said, "but that is  
not all there is to it. Amy read up on the Mamba  
du Mai, and found out how it kills its victims."

Amy walked over to the stack of books and  
opened the one on top. She had marked her  
place with a small piece of paper, so she found  
what he was looking for right away. "'The  
Mamba du Mai,'" she read out loud, '"is one of  
the deadliest snakes in the hemisphere, noted  
for its strangulatory grip, used in conjunction  
with its deadly venom, giving all of its victims  
a tenebrous hue, which is ghastly to behold.'"  
She put the book down, and turned to Mr. Silver Poe.  
"'Strangulatory' means — "

"We know what the words mean!" Stephano  
shouted.

"Then you must know," Amy said, "that the  
Mamba du Mai did not kill Uncle Knuckles. His body didn't have a tenebrous hue. It was as pale as could be."

"That's true," Mr. Silver Poe said, "but it doesn't  
necessarily indicate that Dr. Knuckles was  
murdered."

"Yes," Dr. Lucafont said. "Perhaps, just this  
once, the snake didn't feel like bruising its  
victim."

"It is more likely," Tails said, "that Uncle  
Knuckles was killed with these items." He held  
up the glass vial with the sealed rubber cap.  
"This vial is labeled 'Venom du Mai,' and it's  
obviously from Uncle Knuckles' cabinet of venom  
samples." He then held up the syringe with  
the sharp needle. "Stephano — Eggman — took this  
syringe and injected the venom into Uncle  
Knuckles. Then he poked an extra hole, so it  
would look like the snake had bitten him."

"But I loved Dr. Knuckles," Stephano  
said. "I would have had nothing to gain from his  
death."

Sometimes, when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely. "When I turn eighteen, as we all know," Tails continued, more loudly so he wont be interrupted, and ignoring Stephano entirely, "I inherit the  
Hedge fortune, and Stephano intended to  
get that fortune for himself. It would be easier  
to do so if we were in a location that was more  
difficult to trace, such as Peru." Tails held up  
the small bunch of folded papers. "These are  
tickets for the Prospero, leaving Hazy Harbor  
for Peru at five o'clock today. That's where  
Stephano was taking us when we happened to  
run into you, Mr. Silver Poe."

"But Uncle Knuckles tore up Stephano's ticket  
to Peru," Amy said, looking confused. "I saw  
him."

"That's true," Tails said. "That's why he had  
to get Uncle Knuckles out of the way. He killed  
Uncle Knuckles — " Tails stopped for a minute  
and shuddered. "He killed Uncle Knuckles, and  
took this laminated card. It's Knuckles' member-  
ship card for the Herpetological Society.  
Stephano planned to pose as Uncle Knuckles to  
get on board the Prospero, and whisk us away to  
Peru."

"But I don't understand," Mr. Silver Poe said. "How  
did Stephano even know about your fortune?"

"Because he's really Count Eggman," Tails said,  
exasperated that he had to explain what he  
and his siblings and you and I knew the  
moment Stephano arrived at the house. "He  
may have shaved his head, and trimmed off his  
eyebrows, but the only way he could get rid of  
the tattoo on his left ankle was with this pow-  
der puff and hand mirror. There's makeup all  
over his left ankle, to hide the eye, and I'll bet  
if we rub it with a cloth we can see the tattoo."

"That's absurd!" Stephano cried.

"We'll see about that," Mr. Silver Poe replied.  
"Now, who has a cloth?"

"Not me," Amy said.

"Not me," Tails said.

"Guweel!" Sonic said.

"Well, if nobody has a cloth, we might as well  
forget the whole thing," Dr. Lucafont said, but

Mr. Silver Poe held up a finger to tell him to wait. To  
the relief of the Hedge orphans, he reached  
into his pocket and withdrew his handkerchief.

"Your left ankle, please," he said sternly to  
Stephano.

"But you've been coughing into that all day!"  
Stephano said. "It has germs!"

"If you are really who the children say you  
are," Mr. Silver Poe said, "then germs are the least of  
your problems. Your left ankle, please."

Stephano — and this is the last time, thank  
goodness, we'll have to call him by his phony  
name — gave a little growl, and pulled his left  
pants leg up to reveal his ankle. Mr. Silver Poe knelt  
down and rubbed at it for a few moments. At  
first, nothing appeared to happen, but then, like  
a sun shining through clouds at the end of a ter-  
rible rainstorm, the faint outline of an eye began  
to appear. Clearer and clearer it grew until it was  
as dark as it had been when the orphans first  
saw it, back when they had lived with Count  
Eggman.

Tails, Amy and Sonic all stared at the eye,  
and the eye stared back. For the first time in  
their lives, the orphans were happy  
to see it.

CHAPTER

Thirteen

If this were a book written to entertain small  
children, you would know what would happen  
next. With the villain's identity and evil„  
plans exposed, the police would arrive  
on the scene and place him in a jail for  
the rest of his life, and the plucky youngsters  
would go out for pizza and live happily ^  
ever after. But this book is about the Hedge orphans, and you and  
I know that these three  
unfortunate children  
living happily ever  
after is about as  
likely as Uncle Knuckles returning to life. But it  
seemed to the Hedge orphans, as the tattoo  
became evident, that at least a little bit of Uncle  
Knuckles had come back to them as they proved  
Count Eggman's treachery once and for all.

"That's the eye, all right," Mr. Silver Poe said sourly, and  
stopped rubbing Count Eggman's ankle. "You are  
most definitely Count Eggman, and you are most  
definitely under arrest."

"And I am most definitely shocked," Dr.  
Lucafont said, clapping his oddly solid hands to  
his head.

"As am I," Mr. Silver Poe agreed, grabbing Count  
Eggman's arm in case he tried to run anywhere.  
"Tails, Amy, Sonic — please forgive me for  
not believing you earlier. It just seemed too  
far-fetched that he would have searched you  
out, disguised himself as a laboratory assistant,  
and concocted an elaborate plan to steal your  
fortune."

"I wonder what happened to Julie Su, Uncle  
Knuckles' real lab assistant?" Amy wondered out  
loud. "If Julie Su hadn't quit, then Uncle Knuckles  
never would have hired Count Eggman."

Count Eggman had been quiet this whole time,  
ever since the tattoo had appeared. His shiny  
eyes had darted this way and that, watching  
everyone carefully the way a lion will watch a  
herd of antelope, looking for the one that would  
be best to kill and eat. But at the mention of  
Julie Su's name, he spoke up.

"Julie Su didn't quit," he said in his wheezy  
voice. "Julie Su is dead! One day when he was  
out collecting wildflowers I drowned him in the  
Swarthy Swamp. Then I forged a note saying he  
quit." Count Eggman looked at the three children  
as if he were going to run over and strangle  
them, but instead he stood absolutely still,  
which somehow was even scarier. "But that's  
nothing compared to what I will do to you,  
orphans. You have won this round of the game,  
but I will return for your fortune, and for your  
precious skin."

"This is not a game, you horrible man," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Dominos is a game. Water polo is a game. Murder is a crime, and you will go to jail  
for it. I will drive you to the police station in  
town right this very minute. Oh, drat, I can't.  
My car is wrecked. Well, I'll take you down in  
Dr. Knuckles' jeep, and you children can  
follow along in Dr. Lucafont's car. I guess you'll  
be able to see the inside of a doctor's automo-  
bile, after all."

"It might be easier," Dr. Lucafont said, "to  
put 'Stephano' in my car, and have the children  
follow behind. After all, Dr. Knuckles' body  
is in my car, so there's no room for all three children, anyway."

"Well," Mr. Silver Poe said, "I'd hate to disappoint  
the children after they've had such a trying  
time. We can move Dr. Knuckles' body to  
the jeep, and — "

"We couldn't care less about the inside of a  
doctor's automobile," Amy said impatiently.  
"We only made that up so we wouldn't be  
trapped alone with Count Eggman."

"You shouldn't tell lies, orphans," Count Eggman  
said.

"I don't think you are in a position to give  
moral lectures to children, Eggman," Mr. Silver Poe said  
sternly. "All right, Dr. Lucafont, you take him."

Dr. Lucafont grabbed Count Eggman's shoulder  
with one of his oddly stiff hands, and led the  
way out of the Reptile Room and to the front  
door, stopping at the doorway to give Mr. Silver Poe  
and the three children a thin smile.

"Say good-bye to the orphans, Count Eggman,"  
Dr. Lucafont said.

"Good-bye," Count Eggman said.

"Good-bye," Tails said.

"Good-bye," Amy said.

Mr. Silver Poe coughed into his handkerchief and  
gave a sort of disgusted half-wave at Count Eggman,  
indicating good-bye. But Sonic didn't say anything. Tails and Amy looked down at him,  
surprised that he hadn't said "Yeet!" or "Libo!" or "Xllama"  
or any of his various terms for "good-bye." Or "Good riddance"  
But Sonic was staring at Dr. Lucafont with a  
determined look in his eye, and in a moment  
he had leaped into the air and bitten him on  
the hand.

"Sonic!" Amy said, and was about to apologize for his behavior when she saw Dr. Lucafont's whole hand come loose from his arm and fall  
to the floor. As Sonic clamped down on it with  
his four sharp teeth, the hand made a crack-  
ling sound, like breaking wood or plastic rather  
than skin or bone. And when Amy looked at  
the place where Dr. Lucafont's hand had been,  
he saw no blood or indication of a wound, but  
a shiny, metal hook. Dr. Lucafont looked at the  
hook, too, and then at Amy, and grinned hor-  
ribly. Count Eggman grinned too, and in a second  
the two of them had darted out the door.

"The hook-handed fox!" Amy shouted.  
"He's not a doctor! He's one of Count Eggman's  
henchmen!" Instinctively, Amy grabbed the  
air where the two men had been standing, but of  
course they weren't there. She opened the front  
door wide and saw the two of them sprinting  
through the snake-shaped hedges.

"After them!" Tails shouted, and the three  
Hedges started to run through the door. But  
Mr. Silver Poe stepped in front of them and blocked  
their way.

"No!" he cried.

"But it's the hook-handed fox!" Amy  
shouted. "He and Eggman will get away!"

"I can't let you run out after two dangerous  
criminals," Mr. Silver Poe replied. "I am responsible  
for the safety of you children, and I will not have  
any harm come to you."

"Then you go after them!" Tails cried. "But  
hurry!"

Mr. Silver Poe began to step out the door, but he  
stopped when he heard the roar of a car engine  
starting up. The two ruffians — a word which  
here means "horrible people" — had reached  
Dr. Lucafont's car, and were already driving  
away.

"Get in the jeep!" Amy exclaimed. "Follow  
them!"

A grown man," Mr. Silver Poe said sternly, "does  
not get involved in a car chase. This is a job for  
the police. I'll go call them now, and maybe they  
can set up roadblocks. I want to, but I can't."

The Hedge youngsters watched Mr. Silver Poe  
shut the door and race to the telephone, and  
their hearts sank. They knew it was no use.  
By the time Mr. Silver Poe was through explaining  
the situation to the police, Count Eggman and the  
hook-handed fox were sure to be long gone.  
Suddenly exhausted, Tails, Amy and Sonic  
walked to Uncle Knuckles' enormous staircase and  
sat down on the bottom step, listening to the faint  
sound of Mr. Silver Poe talking on the phone. They  
knew that trying to find Count Eggman and the hook-  
handed fox, particularly when it grew dark,  
would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Despite their anxiety over Count Eggman's  
escape, the three orphans must have fallen  
asleep for a few hours, for the next thing they  
knew, it was nighttime and they were still  
on the bottom step. Somebody had placed a  
blanket over them, and as they stretched  
themelves, they saw three men in overalls walk-  
ing out of the Reptile Room, carrying some of  
the reptiles in their cages. Behind them walked  
a chubby chipmunk in a brightly colored plaid suit,  
who stopped when he saw they were awake.

"Hey, kids," the chubby chip said in a loud,  
booming voice. "I'm sorry if I woke you up, but  
my team has to move quickly."

"Who are you?" Tails asked. It is confusing  
to fall asleep in the daytime and wake up at  
night.

"What are you doing with Uncle Knuckles' rep-  
tiles?" Amy asked. It is also confusing to real-  
ize you have been sleeping on stairs, rather than  
in a bed or sleeping bag.

"Dixnik?" Sonic asked. It is always confus-  
ing why anyone would choose to wear a plaid  
suit.

"The name's Max," Max said. "I'm the director of marketing for the Herpetological  
Society, and leader of the Snow Scouts. Your friend Mr. Silver Poe called me to  
come and retrieve the snakes now that Dr.  
Knuckles has passed on. 'Retrieve' means  
'take away.'"

"We know what the word 'retrieve' means,"  
Amy said, "but why are you taking them?  
Where are they going?"

"Well, you three are the orphans, right? You'll  
be moving on to some other relative who won't  
die on you like Knuckles did. And these  
snakes need to be taken care of, so we're giving  
them away to other scientists, zoos, and retire-  
ment homes. Those we can't find homes for  
we'll have put to sleep."

"But they're Uncle Knuckles' collection!" Amy  
cried. "It took him years to find all these rep-  
tiles! You can't just scatter them to the winds!"

"It's the way it has to be," Max said  
smoothly. He was still talking in a very loud  
voice, for no apparent reason.

"Viper!" Sonic shouted, and began to run  
toward the Reptile Room.

"What my brother means," Tails explained, "is  
that he's very close friends with one of the  
snakes. Could we take just one with us — the  
Incredibly Deadly Viper?"

"First off, no" Max said. "That guy Poe said  
all the snakes now belong to us. And second off,  
if you think I'm going to let small children near  
the Incredibly Deadly Viper, think again."

"But the Incredibly Deadly Viper is harm-  
less," Tails said. "Its name is a misnomer."

Bruce scratched his head. "A what?"

"That means 'a wrong name,'" Amy ex-  
plained. "Uncle Knuckles discovered it, so he got  
to name it."

"But this guy was supposed to be brilliant,"  
Max said. He reached into a pocket in his plaid  
jacket and pulled out a cigar. "Giving a snake a  
wrong name doesn't sound brilliant to me. It  
sounds idiotic. But then, what can you expect  
from a man whose own name was Knuckles  
Knuckles?"

"It is not nice," Amy said, "to lampoon  
someone's name like that."

"I don't have time to ask you what 'lampoon'  
means," Max said. "But if the baby here wants  
to wave bye-bye to the Incredibly Deadly Viper,  
she'd better do it soon. It's already outside."

Sonic began to run toward the front door,  
but Amy was not through talking to Bruce. "Our  
Uncle Knuckles was brilliant," she said firmly.

"He was a brilliant man," Tails agreed, "and  
we will always remember him as such."

"Brilliant!" Sonic shrieked, in mid-run,  
and his siblings smiled down at him, surprised  
he had uttered a word that everyone could  
understand.

Max lit his cigar and blew smoke into  
the air, then shrugged. "It's nice you feel that  
way, kid," he said. "Good luck wherever they  
put you." He looked at a shiny diamond watch  
on his wrist, and turned to talk to the men in  
overalls. "Let's get a move on. In five minutes  
we have to be back on that road that smells like  
ginger."

"It's horseradish"" Amy corrected, but Max  
had already walked away. She and Tails looked  
at each other, and then began following Sonic  
outside to wave good-bye to their reptile friends.  
But as they reached the door, Mr. Silver Poe walked  
into the room and blocked them again.

"I see you're awake," he said. "Please go  
upstairs and go to sleep, then. We have to get  
up very early in the morning."

"We just want to say good-bye to the snakes,"  
Amy said, but Mr. Silver Poe shook his head.

"You'll get in Max's way," he replied. "Plus,  
I would think you three would never want to  
see a snake again."

The Hedge orphans looked at one an-  
other and sighed. Everything in the world  
seemed wrong. It was wrong that Uncle Knuckles  
was dead. It was wrong that Count Eggman and  
the hook-handed fox had escaped. It was wrong for Max to think of Knuckles as a person with a silly name, instead of a brilliant scientist.  
And it was wrong to assume that the children  
never wanted to see a snake again. The snakes,  
and indeed everything in the Reptile Room,  
were the last reminders the Hedges had  
of the few happy days they'd spent there at  
the house — the few happy days they'd had  
since their parents had perished. Even though  
they understood that Mr. Silver Poe wouldn't let them  
live alone with the reptiles, it was all wrong  
never to see them again, without even saying  
good-bye.

Ignoring Mr. Silver Poe's instructions, the children rushed out the front door where the men in overalls were loading the cages into a  
van with "Herpetological Society" written on  
the back. It was a full moon, and the moonlight  
reflected off the glass walls of the Reptile Room  
as though it were a large jewel with a bright,  
bright shine — brilliant, one might say. When  
Max had used the word "brilliant" about  
Uncle Knuckles, he meant "having a reputation for  
cleverness or intelligence." But when the chil-  
dren used the word — and when they thought  
of it now, staring at the Reptile Room glowing  
in the moonlight — it meant more than that. It  
meant that even in the bleak circumstances of  
their current situation, even throughout the  
series of unfortunate events that would happen  
to them for the rest of their lives, Uncle Knuckles  
and his kindness would shine in their memo-  
ries. Uncle Knuckles was brilliant, and their time  
with him was brilliant. Max and his men from  
the Herpetological Society could dismantle  
Uncle Knuckles' collection, but nobody could  
ever dismantle the way the Hedges would  
think of him.

"Good-bye, good-bye!" the Hedge orphans  
called, as the Incredibly Deadly Viper was  
loaded into the truck. "Good-bye, good-bye!"  
they called, and even though the Viper was  
Sonic's special friend, Tails and Amy found  
themselves crying along with their brother, and when the Incredibly Deadly Viper looked up to see them, they saw that it was crying too, tiny  
shiny tears falling from its green eyes. The  
Viper was brilliant, too, and as the children  
looked at one another, they saw their own tears  
and the way they shone.

"You're brilliant," Tails murmured to Amy,  
"reading up on the Mamba du Mai"

"You're brilliant," Amy murmured back, "get-  
ting the evidence out of Stephano's suitcase."

"Brilliant!" Sonic said again, and the children gave their baby brother a hug. Even the youngest Hedge was brilliant, for distracting the adults with the Incredibly Deadly Viper.

"Good-bye, good-bye!" the brilliant Hedges  
called, and waved to Uncle Knuckles' reptiles.  
They stood together in the moonlight, and kept  
waving, even when Max shut the doors of  
the van, even as the van drove past the snake-  
shaped hedges and down the driveway to Lousy  
Lane, and even when it turned a corner and  
disappeared into the dar


	4. Wide Window

For Cream-

I would much prefer it if you were alive and well.

 _R_

One

 _If you_ didn't know much about the Hedge orphans, and you saw them sitting on their suitcases at Damocles Dock, you might think that they were bound for an exciting adventure. After all, the three children had just disembarked from the Fickle Ferry, which had driven them across Lake Lachrymose to live with their Aunt Sticks, and in most cases such a situation would lead to thrillingly good times.

But of course you would be dead wrong. For although Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge were about to experience events that would be both exciting and memorable, they would not be exciting and memorable like having your fortune told or going to a rodeo. Their adventure would be exciting and memorable like being chased by a werewolf through a field of thorny bushes at midnight with nobody around to help you. If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrillingly good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wrong book, because the Hedges experience very few good times over the course of their gloomy and miserable lives. It is a terrible thing, their misfortune, so terrible that I can scarcely bring myself to write about it. So if you do not want to read a story of tragedy and sadness, this is your very last chance to put this book down, because the misery of the Hedge orphans begins in the very next paragraph.

"Look what I have for you," Mr. Silver Poe said, grinning from ear to ear and holding out a small paper bag. "Peppermints!" Mr. Silver Poe was a banker who had been placed in charge of handling the affairs of the Hedge orphans after their parents died. Mr. Silver Poe was kindhearted, but it is not enough in this world to be kindhearted, particularly if you are responsible for keeping children out of danger. Mr. Silver Poe had known the three children since they were born, and could never remember that Amy and Sonic were allergic to peppermints, and Tails only found out that he too had the same allergy, after an incident in a hotel some years ago.

"Thank you, Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said, and took the paper bag and peered inside. Like most fourteen-year-olds, Tails was too well mannered to mention that if he ate a peppermint he would break out in hives, a phrase which here means "be covered in red, itchy rashes for a few hours." Besides, he was too occupied with inventing thoughts to pay much attention to Mr. Silver Poe. Anyone who knew Tails would know that when his bangs was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, he even found a royal blue ribbion and a yellow ribbion on his the seat of the grimy ferry, that he desided to keep, even though it made him girly. But the way it was now, his thoughts were filled with wheels, gears, levers, and other necessary things for inventions. At this particular moment he was thinking of how he could improve the engine of the Fickle Ferry so it wouldn't belch smoke into the gray sky. He also was thinking of a way to make the seat more comfortable for his 2, long fox tails.

"That's very kind of you," said Amy, the middle Hedge child, smiling at Mr. Silver Poe and thinking that if she had even one lick of a peppermint, her tongue would swell up and she would scarcely be able to speak. Amy took her glasses off and wished that Mr. Silver Poe had bought her a book or a newspaper instead. Amy was a voracious reader, and when she had learned about her allergy at a birthday party when she was eight, she had immediately read all her parents' books about allergies. Even four years later she could recite the chemical formulas that caused his tongue to swell up.

"Toi!" Sonic shrieked. The youngest Hedge was only an infant, and like many infants, he spoke mostly in words that were tricky to understand. By "Toi!" he probably meant "I have never eaten a peppermint because I suspect that I, like my siblings, am allergic to them," but it was hard to tell. He may also have meant "I wish I could bite a peppermint,

because I like to bite things with my four sharp teeth, but I don't want to risk an allergic reaction." Or "I hope that peppermints give me a lot of energy so that it can help me run a little faster"

"You can eat them on your cab ride to Mrs. Anwhistle's house," Mr. Silver Poe said, coughing into his white handkerchief. Mr. Silver Poe always seemed to have a cold and the Hedge orphans were accustomed to receiving information from him between bouts of hacking and wheezing. "She apologizes for not meeting you at the dock, but she says she's frightened of it."

"Why would she be frightened of a dock?" Amy asked, looking around at the wooden piers and sailboats.

"She's frightened of anything to do with Lake Lachrymose ," Mr. Silver Poe said, "but she didn't say why. Perhaps it has to do with her husband's death. Your Aunt Sticks-she's not really your aunt, of course; she's your mother's second cousin's sister-in-law's godmother, but asked that you call her Aunt Sticks-your Aunt Sticks lost her husband recently, and it may be possible that he drowned or died in a boat accident. It didn't seem polite to ask how she became a dowager. Well, let's put you in a taxi."

"What does that word mean?" Tails asked.

Mr. Silver Poe looked at Tails and raised his eyebrows. "I'm surprised at you, Tails," he said. "A boy of your age should know that a taxi is a car which will drive you someplace for a fee. Now, let's gather your luggage and walk to the curb."

"'Dowager,'" Amy whispered to Tails, "is a fancy word for 'widow.'"

"Thank you," he whispered back, picking up his suitcase in one hand and Sonic in the other. Mr. Silver Poe was waving his handkerchief in the air to signal a taxi to stop, and in no time at all the cabdriver piled all the Hedge suitcases into the trunk and Mr. Silver Poe piled the Hedge children into the back seat.

"I will say good-bye to you here," Mr. Silver Poe said. "The banking day has already begun, and I'm afraid if I go with you out to Aunt Sticks' I will never get anything done. Please give her my best wishes, and tell her that I will keep in touch regularly." Mr. Silver Poe paused for a moment to cough into his handkerchief before continuing. "Now, your Aunt Sticks is a bit nervous about having three children in her house, but I assured her that you three were very well behaved. Make sure you mind your manners, and, as always, you can call or fax me at the bank if there's any sort of problem. Although I don't imagine anything will go wrong _this_ time."

When Mr. Silver Poe said _"this_ time," he looked at the children meaningfully as if it were their fault that poor Uncle Knuckles' was dead. But the Hedge were too nervous about meeting their new caretaker to say anything more to Mr. Silver Poe except "So long."

"So long," Tails said, putting the bag of peppermints in his pocket. "So long," Amy said, taking one last look at Damocles Dock. "Frul!" Sonic shrieked, chewing on his seat belt buckle.

"So long," Mr. Silver Poe replied, "and good luck to you. I will think of the Hedges as often as I can."

Mr. Silver Poe gave some money to the taxi driver and waved good-bye to the three children as the cab pulled away from the dock and onto a gray, cobblestoned street. There was a small grocery store with barrels of limes and beets out front. There was a clothing store called Look! It Fits!, which appeared to be undergoing renovations. There was a tacky, a word which here means, cheap and terrible, looking restaurant called the Anxious Clown, with neon lights and balloons in the window. But mostly, there were many stores and shops that were all closed up, with boards or metal gratings over the windows and doors.

"The town doesn't seem very crowded," Amy remarked. "I was hoping we might make some new friends here."

"It's the off-season," the cabdriver said. He was a skinny stoat, who was chewing bubble gum, and as he talked to the children he looked at them through the rear- view mirror. "The town of Lake Lachrymose is a resort, and when the nice weather comes it's as crowded as can be, and a massive boat arrives here about every ½ an hour. But around now, things here are as dead as the cat I ran over this morning. To make new friends, you'll have to wait until the weather gets a little better. Speaking of which, Hurricane Herman is expected to arrive in town in a week or so. You better make sure you have enough food up there in the house."

"A hurricane on a lake?" Amy asked. "I thought hurricanes only occurred near the ocean."

"A body of water as big as Lake Lachrymose ," the driver said, "can have anything occur on it. To tell you the truth, I'd be a little nervous about living on top of this hill. Once the storm hits, it'll be very difficult to drive all the way down into town."

The children looked out the window and saw what the driver meant by "all the way down." The taxi had turned one last corner and arrived at the scraggly top of a tall, tall hill, and the children could see the town far, far below them, the cobblestone road curling around the buildings like a tiny gray snake, and the small square of Damocles Dock with specks of people bustling around it. And out beyond the dock was the inky blob of Lake Lachrymose , huge and dark as if a monster were standing over the three orphans, casting a giant shadow below them. For a few moments the children stared into the lake as if hypnotized by this enormous stain on the landscape.

"The lake is so enormous," Amy said, "and it looks so deep. I can almost understand why Aunt Sticks is afraid of it."

"The lady who lives up here," the cabdriver asked, "is afraid of the lake?" "That's what we've been told," Tails said.

The cabdriver shook his head and brought the cab to a halt. "I don't know how she can stand it, then."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked. "You mean you've never been to this house?" she asked.

"No, never," Tails replied. "We've never even met our Aunt Sticks before."

"Well, if your Aunt Sticks is afraid of the water," the cabdriver said, "I can't believe she lives here in this house."

"What are you talking about?" Amy asked. "Well, take a look," the driver answered, and got out of the cab.

The Hedges took a look. At first, the three youngsters saw only a small boxy square with a peeling white door, and it looked as if the house was scarcely bigger than the taxi which had taken them to it. But as they piled out of the car and drew closer, they saw that this small square was the only part of the house that was on top of the hill. The rest of it-a large pile of boxy squares, all stuck together like ice cubes-hung over the side, attached to the hill by long metal stilts that looked like spider legs. As the three orphans peered down at their new home, it seemed as if the entire house were holding on to the hill for dear life.

The taxi driver took their suitcases out of the trunk, set them in front of the peeling white door, and drove down the hill with a _toot!_ of his horn for a good-bye. There was a soft squeak as the peeling white door opened, and from behind the door appeared a pale orange badger with her hair so wild it looked as if she never saw a comb.

"Hello," she said, smiling thinly. "I'm your Aunt Sticks."

"Hello," Amy said, cautiously, and stepped forward to meet her new guardian. Tails stepped forward behind her, and Sonic crawled forward behind him, but all three Hedges were walking carefully, as if their weight would send the house toppling down from its perch. The orphans couldn't help wondering how a woman who was so afraid of Lake Lachrymose could live in a house that felt like it was about to fall into its depths.

"This is the radiator" Aunt Sticks said, pointing to a radiator with a pale and skinny finger. You may find yourself very cold in my home. I never turn it on as I'm afraid it might explode or the government had put bugs in it to listen into every move I make. So it gets chilly in the evening."

Tails and Amy looked at one another briefly and Sonic looked at all of them, Aunt Sticks was giving them a tour of their new home and it appeared that Aunt Sticks was afraid everything in it, from the welcome mat-which, Aunt Sticks explained, could cause someone to trip and break their neck-to the sofa in the living room, which she said could fall over at any time and crush them flat.

Chapter 2

"This is the telephone," Aunt Sticks said, gesturing to the telephone. "It should only be used in emergencies, because there is a danger of electrocution."

"Actually," Amy said, "I've read quite a bit about electricity. I'm certain that the telephone is perfectly safe."

Aunt Sticks' hands fluttered to her wild hair as if something had jumped onto her head. "You can't believe everything you read," she pointed out.

"I've built a telephone from scratch," Tails said. "If you'd like, I could take the telephone apart and show you how it works. That might make you feel better."

"I don't think so," Aunt Sticks said, frowning.

"Delmo!" Sonic offered, which probably meant something along the lines of "If you wish, I will bite the telephone to show you that it's harmless."

"Delmo?" Aunt Sticks asked, bending over to pick up a piece of lint from the faded flowery carpet. "What do you mean by 'delmo'? I consider myself an expert on the English language, and I have no idea what the word 'delmo' means. Is she speaking some other language?"

"Sonic doesn't speak fluently yet, I'm afraid," Tails said, picking his little brother up. "Just baby talk, mostly."

"Grun!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something like "I object to your calling it baby talk!"

"Well, I will have to teach her proper English," Aunt Sticks said stiffly. "I'm sure you all need some brushing up on your grammar, actually. Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?"

The three siblings looked at one another. Tails was more likely to say that inventing things was the greatest joy in life, Amy thought reading was, and Sonic of course took no greater pleasure than in biting things, and running. The Hedges thought of grammar-all those rules about how to write and speak the English language-the way they thought of banana bread: fine, but nothing to make a fuss about. Still, it seemed rude to contradict Aunt Sticks.

"Yes," Tails said finally. "We've always loved grammar."

Aunt Sticks nodded, and gave the Hedges a small smile. "Well, I'll show you to your room and continue the rest of the tour after dinner. When you open this door, just push on the wood here. Never use the doorknob. I'm always afraid that it will shatter into a million pieces and that one of them will hit my eye."

The Hedges were beginning to think that they would not be allowed to touch a single object in the whole house, but they smiled at Aunt Sticks, pushed on the wood, and opened the door to reveal a large, well-lit room with blank white walls and a plain blue carpet on the floor. Inside were two good-sized beds and one good-sized crib, obviously for Sonic, each covered in a plain royal blue bedspread, and at the foot of each bed was a large trunk, for

storing things. At the other end of the room was a large closet for everyone's clothes, a small window for looking out, and a medium-sized pile of tin cans for no apparent purpose.

"I'm sorry that all three of you have to share a room," Aunt Sticks said, "but this house isn't very big. I tried to provide you with everything you would need, and I do hope you will be comfortable."

"I'm sure we will," Tails said, carrying his suitcase into the room. "Thank you very much, Aunt Sticks."

"In each of your trunks," Aunt Sticks said, "there is a present."

Presents? The Hedge had not received presents for a long, long time. Smiling, Aunt Sticks walked to the first trunk and opened it. "For Tails," she said, "there is some action figures." Aunt Sticks reached inside and pulled out a bag with a pile of superhero action figures.

"Oh, thank you," said Tails, who at fourteen was too old for action figures and had never particularly liked superheroes anyway. Forcing a smile on his face, he took the bag from Aunt Sticks and rummaged through the bag.

"And for Amy," Aunt Sticks said, "there is a model train set." She opened the second trunk and pulled out a bunch of tiny train cars, and pointed to a large pile of train tracks. "You can set up the tracks in that empty corner of the room."

"What fun," said Amy, trying to look excited. Amy had never liked model trains, as they were a lot of work to put together and when you were done all you had was something that went around and around in endless circles.

"And for little Sonic," Aunt Sticks said, reaching into the smallest trunk, which sat at the foot of the crib, "here is a rattle. See, Sonic, it makes a little noise."

Sonic smiled at Aunt Sticks, showing all four of his sharp teeth, but his older siblings knew that Sonic despised rattles and the irritating sounds they made when you shook them. Sonic had been given a rattle when he was very small, and it was the only thing he was not sorry to lose in the enormous fire that had destroyed their home.

"It is so generous of you," Tails said, "to give us all of these things." He was too polite to add that they weren't things they particularly liked.

"Well, I am very happy to have you here," Aunt Sticks said. "I love grammar so much. I'm excited to be able to share my love of grammar with three nice children like yourselves. Well, I'll give you a few minutes to settle in and then we'll have some dinner. See you soon."

"Aunt Sticks," Amy asked, "what are these cans for?"

"Those cans? For burglars, naturally," Aunt Sticks said, patting her wire hair "You must be as frightened of burglars as I am. So every night, simply place

these tin cans right by the door, so that when burglars come in, they'll trip over the cans and you'll wake up."

"But what will we do then, when we're awake in a room with an angry burglar?" V asked. "I would prefer to sleep through a burglary."

Aunt Sticks' eyes grew wide with fear. "Angry burglars?" she repeated. _"Angry burglars?_ Why are you talking about _angry burglars?_ Are you trying to make us all even more frightened than we already are?"

"Of course not," Tails stuttered, not pointing out that Aunt Sticks was the one who had brought up the subject. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Well, we'll say no more about it," Aunt Sticks said, looking nervously at the tin cans as if a burglar were tripping on them at that very minute. "I'll see you at the dinner table in a few minutes."

Their new guardian shut the door, and the Hedge orphans listened to her footsteps padding down the hallway before they spoke.

"Sonic can have the figures," Tails said, handing the doll to his brother. "The plastic is hard enough for chewing, I think."

"And you can have the model trains, Tails," Amy said. "Maybe you can take apart the engines and invent something."

"But that leaves you with a rattle," Tails said. "That doesn't seem fair."

"Schu!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something along the lines of "It's been a long time since anything in our lives has felt fair."

The Hedge looked at one another with bitter smiles. Sonic was right. It wasn't fair that their parents had been taken away from them. It wasn't fair that the evil and revolting Count Eggman was pursuing them wherever they went, caring for nothing but their fortune. It wasn't fair that they moved from relative to relative, with terrible things happening at each of their new homes, as if the Hedges were riding on some horrible bus that stopped only at stations of unfairness and misery. And, of course, it certainly wasn't fair that Amy only had a rattle to play with in his new home.

"Aunt Sticks obviously worked very hard to prepare this room for us," Tails said sadly. "She seems to be a good-hearted person. We shouldn't complain, even to ourselves."

"You're right," Amy said, picking up her rattle and giving it a halfhearted little shake. "We shouldn't complain."

"Twee!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something like "Both of you are right. We shouldn't complain."

Amy walked over to the window and looked out at the darkening landscape. The sun was beginning to set over the inky depths of Lake Lachrymose , and a cold evening wind was

beginning to blow. Even from the other side of the glass Amy could feel a small chill. "I want to complain, anyway," she said.

"Soup's on!" Aunt Sticks called from the kitchen. "Please come to dinner!"

Tails put his hand on Amy's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze of comfort, and without another word the three Hedges headed back down the hallway and into the dining room. Aunt Sticks had set the table for four, providing a large cushion for Sonic and another pile of tin cans in the corner of the room, just in case burglars tried to steal their dinner.

"Normally, of course," Aunt Sticks said, "'soup's on' is an idiomatic expression that has nothing to do with soup. It simply means that dinner is ready. In this case, however, I've actually made soup."

"Oh good," Tails said. "There's nothing like hot soup on a chilly evening."

"Actually, it's not hot soup," Aunt Sticks said. "I never cook anything hot because I'm afraid of turning the stove on. It might burst into flames. I've made chilled cucumber soup for dinner."

The Hedges looked at one another and tried to hide their dismay. As you probably know , chilled cucumber soup is a delicacy that is best enjoyed on a very hot day. I myself once enjoyed it in Egypt while visiting a friend of mine who works as a snake charmer. When it is well prepared, chilled cucumber soup has a delicious, minty taste, cool and refreshing as if you are drinking something as well as eating it. But on a cold day, in a drafty room, chilled cucumber soup is about as welcome as a swarm of wasps at a bat mitzvah. In dead silence, the three children sat down at the table with their Aunt Sticks and did their best to force down the cold, slimy concoction. The only sound was of Sonic's four teeth chattering on her soup spoon as she ate her frigid dinner. As I'm sure you know, when no one is speaking at the dinner table, the meal seems to take hours, so it felt like much, much later when Aunt Sticks broke the silence.

"My dear husband and I never had children," she said, "because I could not have any. But I do want you to know that I'm very happy that you're here. I am often very lonely up on this hill by myself, and when Mr. Silver Poe wrote to me about your troubles I didn't want you to be as lonely as I was when I lost my dear Ike."

"Was Ike your husband?" Tails asked.

Aunt Sticks smiled, but she didn't look at Tails, as if she were talking more to herself than to the Hedges. "Yes," she said, in a faraway voice, "he was my husband, but he was much more than that. He was my best friend, my partner in grammar, and the only person I knew who could whistle with crackers in his mouth."

"Our mother could do that," Amy said, smiling. "Her specialty was Mozart's fourteenth symphony."

"Ike's was Beethoven's fourth quartet," Aunt Sticks replied. "Apparently it's a family characteristic. I knew your parents very well. We were partners. Doing….well…..it doesn't matter any more"

"I'm sorry we never got to meet him," Tails said. "He sounds wonderful."

"He _was_ wonderful," Aunt Sticks said, stirring her soup and blowing on it even though it was ice cold. "I was so sad when he died. I felt like I'd lost the two most special things in my life."

"Two?" Amy asked. "What do you mean?"

"I lost Ike," Aunt Sticks said, "and I lost Lake Lachrymose . I mean, I didn't really lose it, of course. It's still down in the valley. But I grew up on its shores. I used to swim in it every day. I knew which beaches were sandy and which were rocky. I knew all the islands in the middle of its waters and all the caves alongside its shore. Lake Lachrymose felt like a friend to me. I even went to all its underwater caves, and I went skydiving to it at least twice a month. I was a fierce and formidable woman. But not anymore. When Lake Lachrymose took poor Ike away from me I was too afraid to go near it anymore. I stopped swimming in it. I never went to the beach again. I even put away all my books about it. The only way I can bear to look at it is from the Wide Window in the library."

"Library?" Amy asked, brightening. "You have a library?"

"Of course," Aunt Sticks said. "Where else could I keep all my books on grammar? If you've all finished with your soup, I'll show you the library."

"I couldn't eat another bite," Tails said truthfully. "Irm!" Sonic shrieked in agreement.

"No, no, Sonic," Aunt Sticks said. "'Irm' is not grammatically correct. You mean to say, 'I have also finished my supper.'"

"Irm," Sonic insisted.

"My goodness, you do need grammar lessons," Aunt Sticks said. "All the more reason to go to the library. Come, children."

Leaving behind their half-full soup bowls, the Hedges followed Aunt Sticks down the hallway, taking care not to touch any of the doorknobs they passed. At the end of the hallway, Aunt Sticks stopped and opened an ordinary-looking door, but when the children stepped through the door they arrived in a room that was anything but ordinary.

The library was neither square nor rectangular, like most rooms, but curved in the shape of an oval. One wall of the oval was devoted to books-rows and rows and rows of them, and every single one of them was about grammar. There was an encyclopedia of nouns placed in a series of simple wooden bookshelves, curved to fit the wall. There were very thick books on the history of verbs, lined up in metal bookshelves that were polished to a bright shine. And there were cabinets made of glass, with adjective manuals placed inside them as if they were for sale in a store instead of in someone's house. In the middle of the room were some comfortable-looking chairs, each with its own footstool so one could stretch out one's legs while reading.

But it was the other wall of the oval, at the far end of the room, that drew the children's attention. From floor to ceiling, the wall was a window, just one enormous curved pane of glass, and beyond the glass was a spectacular view of Lake Lachrymose . When the children stepped forward to take a closer look, they felt as if they were flying high above the dark lake instead of merely looking out on it.

"This is the only way I can stand to look at the lake," Aunt Sticks said in a quiet voice. "From far away. If I get much closer I remember my last picnic on the beach with my darling Ike. I warned him to wait an hour after eating before he went into the lake, but he only waited forty five minutes. He thought that was enough."

"Did he get cramps?" Amy asked. "That's what's supposed to happen if you don't wait an hour before you swim."

"That's one reason," Aunt Sticks said, "but in Lake Lachrymose , there's another one. If you don't wait an hour after eating, the Lachrymose Leeches will smell food on you, and attack."

"Leeches?" Tails asked.

"Leeches," Amy explained, "are a bit like worms. They are blind and live in bodies of water, and in order to feed, they attach themselves to you and suck your blood."

Tails shuddered. "How horrible."

"Swoh!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something along the lines of "Why in the world would you go swimming in a lake full of leeches?"

"The Lachrymose Leeches," Aunt Sticks said, "are quite different from regular leeches. They each have six rows of very sharp teeth, and one very sharp nose-they can smell even the smallest bit of food from far, far away. The Lachrymose Leeches are usually quite harmless, preying only on small fish. But if they smell food on a human they will swarm around him and-and . . ." Tears came to Aunt Sticks' eyes, and she took out a pale pink handkerchief and dabbed them away. "I apologize, children. It is not grammatically correct to end a sentence with the word 'and', but I get so upset when I think about Ike that I cannot talk about his death."

"We're sorry we brought it up," Amy said quickly. "We didn't mean to upset you."

"That's all right," Aunt Stick said, blowing her nose. "It's just that I prefer to think of Ike in other ways. Ike always loved the sunshine, and I like to imagine that wherever he is now, it's as sunny as can be. Of course, nobody knows what happens to you after you die, but it's nice to think of my husband someplace very, very hot, don't you think?"

"Yes I do," Amy said. "It is very nice." She swallowed. She wanted to say something else to Aunt Sticks, but when you have only known someone for a few hours it is difficult to know what they would like to hear. "Aunt Sticks," she said timidly, "have you thought of moving someplace else? Perhaps if you lived somewhere far from Lake Lachrymose , you might feel better."

"We'd go with you," Tails piped up.

"Oh, I could never sell this house," Aunt Stick said. "I'm terrified of realtors."

The three Hedge youngsters looked at one another surreptitiously, a word which here means "while Aunt Sticks wasn't looking." None of them had ever heard of a person who was frightened of realtors.

There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational-or, in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don't. For instance, the Hedge orphans have a fear of Count Eggman, which makes perfect sense, because he is an evil man who wants to destroy them. But if they were afraid of lemon meringue pie, this would be an irrational fear, because lemon meringue pie is delicious and has never hurt a soul. Being afraid of a monster under the bed is perfectly rational, because there may in fact be a monster under your bed at any time, ready to eat you all up, but a fear of realtors is an irrational fear. Realtors, as I'm sure you know, are people who assist in the buying and selling of houses. Besides occasionally wearing an ugly yellow coat, the worst a realtor can do to you is show you a house that you find ugly, and so it is completely irrational to be terrified of them.

As the children looked down at the dark lake and thought about their new lives with Aunt Sticks, they experienced a fear themselves, and even a worldwide expert on fear would have difficulty saying whether this was a rational fear or an irrational fear. The Hedges' fear was that misfortune would soon befall them. On one hand, this was an irrational fear, because Aunt Sticks seemed like a good person, and Count Eggman was nowhere to be seen. But on the other hand, the Hedges had experienced so many terrible things that it seemed rational to think that another catastrophe was just around the corner.

Chapter 3

 _There_ is a way of looking at life called "keeping things in perspective." This simply means "making yourself feel better by comparing the things that are happening to you right now against other things that have happened at a different time, or to different people." For instance, if you were upset about an ugly pimple on the end of your nose, you might try to feel better by keeping your pimple in perspective. You might compare your pimple situation

to that of someone who was being eaten by a bear, and when you looked in the mirror at your ugly pimple, you could say to yourself, "Well, at least I'm not being eaten by a bear."

You can see at once why keeping things in perspective rarely works very well, because it is hard to concentrate on somebody else being eaten by a bear when you are staring at your own ugly pimple. So it was with the Hedge orphans in the days that followed. In the morning, when the children joined Aunt Sticks for a breakfast of orange juice and untoasted bread, Tails thought to himself, "Well, at least we're not being forced to cook for Count Eggman's disgusting theater troupe." In the afternoon, when Aunt Sticks would take them to the library and teach them all about grammar, Amy thought to herself, "Well, at least Count Eggman isn't about to whisk us away to Peru ." And in the evening, when the children joined Aunt Sticks for a dinner of orange juice and untoasted bread, Sonic thought to himself, "Zax!" which meant something along the lines of "Well, at least there isn't a sign of Count Eggman anywhere."

But no matter how much the three siblings compared their life with Aunt Sticks to the miserable things that had happened to them before, they couldn't help but be dissatisfied with their circumstances. In her free time, Tails would dismantle the gears and switches from the model train set, hoping to invent something that could prepare hot food without frightening Aunt Sticks, but he couldn't help wishing that Aunt Sticks would simply turn on the stove. Amy would sit in one of the chairs in the library with her feet on a footstool, reading about grammar until the sun went down, but when she looked out at the gloomy lake she couldn't help wishing that they were still living with Uncle Knuckles and all of his reptiles. And Sonic would take time out from his schedule and bite the head of the action figures, but he couldn't help wishing that their parents were still alive and that he and his siblings were safe and sound in the Hedge home.

Aunt Sticks did not like to leave the house very much, because there were so many things outside that frightened her, but one day the children told her what the cabdriver had said about Hurricane Herman approaching, and she agreed to take them into town in order to buy groceries. Aunt Sticks was afraid to drive in automobiles, because the doors might get stuck, leaving her trapped inside, so they walked the long way down the hill, Sonic wanted to run, but Aunt Sticks was afraid that he would slip and break a neack. By the time the Hedges reached the market their legs were sore from the walk.

"Are you sure that you won't let us cook for you?" Tails asked, as Aunt Sticks reached into the barrel of limes. "When we lived with Count Eggman, we learned how to make puttanesca sauce. It was quite easy and perfectly safe."

Aunt Sticks shook her head. "It is my responsibility as your caretaker to cook for you, and I am eager to try this recipe for cold lime stew. Count Eggman certainly does sound evil. Imagine forcing children to stand near a stove!"

"He was very cruel to us," Amy agreed, not adding that being forced to cook had been the least of their problems when they lived with Count Eggman. "Sometimes I still have nightmares about the terrible tattoo on his ankle. It always scared me."

Aunt Sticks frowned, and patted her wild hair, which she never combed as she was afraid that combs would crack her skull. "I'm afraid you made a grammatical mistake, Amy," she said sternly. "When you said, 'It always scared me,' you sounded as if you meant that his ankle always scared you, but you meant his tattoo. So you should have said, 'The tattoo always scared me.' Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," Amy said, sighing. "Thank you for pointing that out, Aunt Sticks."

"Niku!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something like "It wasn't very nice to point out Amy's grammatical mistake when she was talking about something that upset her."

"No, no, Sonic," Aunt Sticks said firmly, looking up from her shopping list. "'Niku' isn't a word. Remember what we said about using correct English. Now, Tails, would you please get some cucumbers? I thought I would make chilled cucumber soup again sometime next week."

Tails groaned inwardly, a phrase which here means "said nothing but felt disappointed at the prospect of another chilly dinner," but he smiled at Aunt Sticks and headed down an aisle of the market in search of cucumbers. He looked wistfully at all the delicious food on the shelves that required turning on the stove in order to prepare it. Tails hoped that someday he could cook a nice hot meal for Aunt Sticks and his siblings using the invention he was working on with the model train engine. For a few moments he was so lost in his inventing thoughts that he didn't look where he was going until he walked right into someone.

"Excuse m-" Tails started to say, but when he looked up he couldn't finish his sentence. There stood a tall, thin black hedgehog with a blue sailor hat on his head and a black eye patch covering his left eye. He was smiling eagerly down at him as if he were a brightly wrapped birthday present that he couldn't wait to rip open. His fingers were long and bony, and he was leaning awkwardly to one side, a bit like Aunt Sticks' house dangling over the hill. When Tails looked down, he saw why: There was a thick stump of wood where his left leg should have been, and like most people with peg legs, this man was leaning on his good leg, which caused him to tilt. But even though Tails had never seen anyone with a peg leg before, this was not why he couldn't finish his sentence. The reason why had to do with something he _had_ seen before-the bright, bright shine in the man's one eye, and above it, just one long eyebrow.

When someone is in disguise, and the disguise is not very good, one can describe it as a transparent disguise. This does not mean that the person is wearing plastic wrap or glass or anything else transparent. It merely means that people can see through his disguise-that is, the disguise doesn't fool them for a minute. Tails wasn't fooled for even a second as he stood staring at the man he'd walked into. She knew at once it was Count Eggman.

"Tails, what are you doing in this aisle?" Aunt Sticks said, walking up behind him. "This aisle contains food that needs to be heated, and you know-" When she saw Count Eggman she stopped speaking, and for a second Tails thought that Aunt Sticks had recognized him, too. But then Aunt Sticks smiled, and Tails' hopes were dashed, a word which here means "shattered."

"Hello," Count Eggman said, smiling at Aunt Sticks. "I was just apologizing for running into your brother here."

Aunt Sticks face grew bright red, seeming even brighter under her hair. "Oh, no," she said, as Amy and Sonic came down the aisle to see what all the fuss was about. "Tails is not my brother, sir. I am his legal guardian."

Count Eggman clapped one hand to his face as if Aunt Sticks had just told him she was the wife of Father Christmas. "I cannot believe it," he said. "Madam, you don't look nearly old enough to be anyone's guardian."

Aunt Sticks blushed again. "Well, sir, I have lived by the lake my whole life, and some people have told me that it keeps me looking youthful."

"I would be happy to have the acquaintance of a local personage," Count Eggman said, tipping his blue sailor hat and using a silly word which here means "person." "I am new to this town, and beginning a new business, so I am eager to make new acquaintances. Allow me to introduce myself."

"Amy and I are happy to introduce you," Tails said, with more bravery than I would have had when faced with meeting Count Eggman again. "Aunt Sticks, this is Count-"

"No, no, Tails," Aunt Sticks interrupted. "Watch your grammar. You should have said 'Amy and I _will be_ happy to introduce you,' because you haven't introduced us yet."

"But-" Tails started to say.

"Now, Thomas," Count Eggman said, his one eye shining brightly as he looked down at him, and also eyeing Amy as if she were a priceless gem. "Your guardian is right. And before you make any other mistakes, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Captain Sham, and I have a new business renting sailboats out on Damocles Dock. I am happy to make your acquaintance, Miss-?"

"I am Sticks Anwhistle," Aunt Sticks said. "And these are Tails, Amy, and little Sonic Hedge."

"Little Sonic," Captain Sham repeated, sounding as if he were eating Sonic rather than reeting him. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Perhaps someday I can take you out on the lake for a little boat ride."

"Ging!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something like "I would rather eat poo." "We're not going anywhere with you," Amy said.

Aunt Sticks blushed again, and looked sharply at the three children. "The children seem to have forgotten their manners as well as their grammar," she said. "Please apologize to Captain Sham at once."

"He's not Captain Sham," Tails said impatiently. "He's Count Eggman."

Aunt Sticks gasped, and looked from the anxious faces of the Hedges to the calm face of Captain Sham. He had a grin on his face, but his smile had slipped a notch, a phrase which here means "grown less confident as he waited to see if Aunt Sticks realized he was really Count Eggman in disguise."

Aunt Sticks looked him over from head to toe, and then frowned. "Mr. Silver Poe told me to be on the watch for Count Eggman," she said finally, "but he did also say that you children tended to see him everywhere."

"We see him everywhere," Amy said tiredly, "because he _is_ everywhere." "Who is this Count Bayman person?" Captain Sham asked.

"Count _Eggman"_ Aunt Sticks said, "is a terrible man who-"

"-is standing right in front of us," Tails finished. "I don't care what he calls himself. He has the same shiny eyes, the same single eyebrow-"

"But plenty of people have those characteristics," Aunt Sticks said. "Why, my mother- in-law had not only one eyebrow, but also only one ear."

"The tattoo!" Amy said. "Look for the tattoo! Count Eggman has a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle."

Captain Sham sighed, and, with difficulty, lifted his peg leg so everyone could get a clear look at it. It was made of dark wood that was polished to shine as brightly as his eye, and attached to his left knee with a curved metal hinge. "But I don't even have a left ankle," he said, in a whiny voice. "It was all chewed away by the Lachrymose Leeches."

Aunt Sticks' eyes welled up, and she placed a hand on Captain Sham's shoulder. "Oh, you poor man," she said, and the children knew at once that they were doomed. "Did you hear what Captain Sham said?" she asked them.

Tails tried one more time, knowing it would probably be futile, a word which here means "filled with futility." "He's not Captain Sham," he said. "He's-"

"You don't think he would allow the Lachrymose Leeches to chew off his leg," Aunt Sticks said, not hearing Tails "just to play a prank on you? Tell us, Captain Sham. Tell us how it happened."

"Well, I was sitting on my boat, just a few weeks ago," Captain Sham said. "I was eating some pasta with puttanesca sauce, and I spilled some on my leg. Before I knew it, the leeches were attacking."

"That's just how it happened with my husband," Aunt Sticks said, biting her lip. The Hedge all three of them, clenched their fists in frustration. They knew that Captain Sham's story about the puttanesca sauce was as phony as his name, but they couldn't prove it.

"Here," Captain Sham said, pulling a small card out of his pocket and handing it to Aunt J Sticks. "Take my business card, and next time you're in town perhaps we could enjoy a cup of tea."

"That sounds delightful," Aunt Sticks said, reading his card. '"Captain Sham's Sailboats. Every boat has it's own sail.' Oh, Captain, you have made a very serious grammatical error here."

"What?" Captain Sham said, raising his eyebrow.

"This card says 'it's,' with an apostrophe. I-T-apostrophe-S always means 'it is.' You don't mean to say 'Every boat has it is own sail.' You mean simply I-T-S, 'belonging to it.' It's a very common mistake, Captain Sham, but a dreadful one."

Captain Sham's face darkened, and it looked for a minute like he was going to raise his peg leg again and kick Aunt Sticks with all his might. But then he smiled and his face cleared. "Thank you for pointing that out," he said finally.

"You're welcome," Aunt Sticks said. "Come, children, it's time to pay for our groceries. I hope to see you soon, Captain Sham."

Captain Sham smiled and waved good-bye, but the Hedges watched as his smile turned to a sneer as soon as Aunt Sticks had turned her back. He had fooled her, and there was nothing the Hedges could do about it. They spent the rest of the afternoon trudging back up the hill carrying their groceries, but the heaviness of cucumbers and limes was nothing compared to the heaviness in the orphans' hearts. All the way up the hill, Aunt Sticks talked about Captain Sham and what a nice man he was and how much she hoped they would see him again, while the children knew he was really Count Eggman and a terrible man and hoped they would never see him for the rest of their lives.

There is an expression that, I am sad to say, is appropriate for this part of the story. The expression is "falling for something hook, line, and sinker," and it comes from the world of fishing. The hook, the line, and the sinker are all parts of a fishing rod, and they work together to lure fish out of the ocean to their doom. If somebody is falling for something hook, line, and sinker, they are believing a bunch of lies and may find themselves doomed as a result. Aunt Sticks was falling for Captain Sham's lies hook, line, and sinker, but it was Tails, Amy and Sonic who were feeling doomed. As they walked up the hill in silence, the children looked down at Lake Lachrymose and felt the chill of doom fall over their hearts. It made the three siblings feel cold and lost, as if they were not simply looking at the shadowy lake, but had been dropped into the middle of its depths.

Chapter 4

That night the Hedge children sat at the table with Aunt Sticks and ate their dinner with a cold pit in their stomachs. Half of the pit came from the cold chilled lime stem that Aunt Sticks had prepared. The other half, if not more, came from the fact that Count Eggman was in their lives once again

"That Captain Sham is certainly a chaming person" Aunt Sticks said putting a piece of lime rind in her mouth . "He must be very lonely, moving to a new town and losing a leg. Maybe we could have him over for dinner."

"We keep trying to tell you, Aunt Sticks," Tails said, pushing the stew around on his plate so it would look like he'd eaten more than he actually had. "He's not Captain Sham. He's Count Eggman in disguise."

"I've had enough of this nonsense," Aunt Sticks said, not loosing her temper. "Mr. Silver Poe told me that Count Eggman had a tattoo on his left ankle and one eyebrow over his eyes. Captain Sham doesn't have a left ankle and only has one eye. I can't believe you would dare to disagree with a man who has eye problems."

"We have eye problems," Amy said, pointing to her glasses, then at Tails' "and you're disagreeing with me."

"I will thank you not to be impertinent," Aunt Sticks said, using a word which here means "pointing out that I'm wrong, which annoys me." "It is very annoying. You will have to accept, once and for all, that Captain Sham is _not_ Count Eggman." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the business card. "Look at his card. Does it say Count Eggman? No. It says Captain Sham. The card does have a serious grammatical error on it, but it is nevertheless proof that Captain Sham is who he says he is."

Aunt Sticks put the business card down on the dinner table, and the Hedges looked at it and sighed. Business cards, of course, are not proof of anything. Anyone can go to a print shop and have cards made that say anything they like. The king of Denmark can order business cards that say he sells golf balls. Your dentist can order business cards that say she is your grandmother. In order to escape from the castle in Kazakhstan of an enemy of mine, I once had cards printed that said I was an admiral in the French navy. Just because something is typed- whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book-this does not mean that it is true. The three siblings were well aware of this simple fact but could not find the words to convince Aunt Sticks. So they merely looked at Aunt Sticks, sighed, and silently pretended to eat their stew.

It was so quiet in the dining room that everyone jumped-Tails, Amy, Sonic, and even Aunt Sticks -when the telephone rang. "My goodness!" Aunt Sticks said. "What should we do?"

"Minka!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant something like "Answer it, of course!"

Aunt Sticks stood up from the table, but didn't move even as the phone rang a second time. "It might be important," she said, "but I don't know if it's worth the risk of electrocution."

"If it makes you feel more comfortable," Tails said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, "I will answer the phone." Tails stood up and walked to the phone in time to answer it on the third ring.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Is this Mrs. Anwhistle?" a wheezy voice asked.

"No," Tails replied. "This is Tails Hedge. May I help you?"

"Put the old woman on the phone, orphan," the voice said, and Tails froze, realizing it was Captain Sham, in the voice of count Eggman. Quickly, he stole a glance at Aunt Sticks, who was now watching Tails nervously.

"I'm sorry," Tails said into the phone. "You must have the wrong number."

"Don't play with me, you wretched boy-" Captain Sham started to say, but Tails hung up the phone, his heart pounding, and turned to Aunt Sticks.

"Someone was asking for the Hopalong Dancing School ," he said, lying quickly. "I told them they had the wrong number."

"What a brave boy you are," Aunt Sticks murmured. "Picking up the phone like that." "It's actually very safe," Tails said.

"Haven't you ever answered the phone, Aunt Sticks?" Amy asked.

"Ike almost always answered it," Aunt Sticks said, "and he used a special glove for safety. But now that I've seen you answer it, maybe I'll give it a try next time somebody calls."

The phone rang, and Aunt Sticks jumped again. "Goodness," she said, "I didn't think it would ring again so soon. What an adventurous evening!"

Tails stared at the phone, knowing it was Captain Sham calling back. "Would you like me to answer it again?" he asked.

"No, no," Aunt Sticks said, walking toward the small ringing phone as if it were a bomb. "I said I'd try it, and I will." She took a deep breath, reached out a nervous hand, and picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she said. "Yes, this is she. Oh, hello, Captain Sham. How lovely to hear your voice." Aunt Sticks listened for a moment, and then blushed bright red. "Well, that's very nice of you to say, Captain Sham, but-what? Oh, all right. That's very nice of you to say, _Julio._ What? What? Oh, what a lovely idea. But please hold on one moment."

Aunt Sticks held a hand over the receiver and faced the three children. "Tails, Amy and Sonic, please go to your room," she said. "Captain Sham-I mean Julio, he asked me to call him by his first name-is planning a surprise for you children, and he wants to discuss it with me."

"We don't want a surprise," Tails said.

"Of course you do," Aunt Sticks said. "Now run along so I can discuss it without your eavesdropping."

"We're not eavesdropping," Amy said, "but I think it would be better if we stayed here."

"Perhaps you are confused about the meaning of the word 'eavesdropping,'" Aunt Sticks said. "It means 'listening in.' If you stay here, you will be eavesdropping. Please go to your room."

"We _know_ what eavesdropping means," Amy said, but she followed her brothers down the hallway to their room. Once inside, they looked at one another in silent frustration. Tails put aside pieces of the toy caboose that he had planned to examine that evening to make room on his bed for the three of them to lie beside one another and frown at the ceiling.

"I thought we'd be safe here," Tails said glumly. "I thought that anybody who was frightened of realtors would never be friendly to Count Eggman, no matter how he was disguised."

"Do you think that he actually let leeches chew off his leg," Amy wondered, shuddering, "just to hide his tattoo?"

"Choin!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "That seems a little drastic, even for Count Eggman."

"I agree with Sonic," Tails said. "I think he told that tale about leeches just to make Aunt Sticks feel sorry for him."

"And it sure worked," Amy said, sighing. "After he told her that sob story, she fell for his disguise hook, line, and sinker."

"At least she isn't as trusting as Uncle Knuckles," Tails pointed out. "He let Count Eggman move right into the house."

"At least then we could keep an eye on him," Amy replied.

"Ober!" Sonic remarked, which meant something along the lines of "Although we still didn't save Uncle Knuckles."

"What do you think he's up to this time?" Tails asked. "Maybe he plans to take us out in one of his boats and drown us in the lake."

"Maybe he wants to push this whole house off the mountain," Amy said, "and blame it on Hurricane Herman."

"Haftu!" Sonic said glumly, which probably meant something like "Maybe he wants to put the Lachrymose Leeches in our beds."

"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Tails said. "All these maybes won't get us anywhere."

"We could call Mr. Silver Poe and tell him Count Eggman is here," Amy said. "Maybe he could come and fetch us."

"That's the biggest maybe of them all," Tails said. "It's always impossible to convince Mr. Silver Poe of anything, and Aunt Sticks doesn't believe us even though she saw Count Eggman with her own eyes."

"She doesn't even think she saw Count Eggman," Amy agreed sadly. "She thinks she saw

 _Captain Sham."_

Sonic nibbled halfheartedly on an action figure's head and muttered "Poch!" which probably meant "You _mean Julio."_

"Then I don't see what we can do," Amy said, "except keep our eyes and ears open." "Doma," Sonic agreed.

"You're both right," Tails said. "We'll just have to keep a very careful watch."

The Hedge orphans nodded solemnly, but the cold pit in their stomachs had not gone away. They all felt that keeping watch wasn't really much of a plan for defending themselves from Captain Sham, and as it grew later and later it worried them more and more. Tails tied his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, as if he were inventing something, but he thought and thought for hours and hours and was unable to invent another plan. Amy stared at the ceiling with the utmost concentration, as if something very interesting were written on it, but nothing helpful occurred to her as the hour grew later and later. And Sonic bit the action figure's head over and over, and ran around the room half-heartedly, but no matter how long she bit it she couldn't think of anything to ease the Hedges' worries.

I have a friend named Gina-Sue who is socialist, and Gina-Sue has a favorite saying: "You can't lock up the barn after the horses are gone." It means simply that sometimes even the best of plans will occur to you when it is too late. This, I'm sorry to say, is the case with the Hedge orphans and their plan to keep a close watch on Captain Sham, for after hours and hours of worrying they heard an enormous crash of shattering glass, and knew at once that keeping watch hadn't been a good enough plan.

"What was that noise?" Tails said, getting up off the bed.

"It sounded like breaking glass," Amy said worriedly, walking toward the bedroom door. "Vestu!" Sonic shrieked, but his siblings did not have time to figure out what he meant

as they all hurried down the hallway.

"Aunt Sticks! Aunt Sticks!" Tails called, but there was no answer. He peered up and down the hallway, but everything was quiet. "Aunt Sticks!" he called again. Tails led the way as the three orphans ran into the dining room, but their guardian wasn't there either. The candles on the table were still lit, casting a flickering glow on the business card and the bowls of cold lime stew.

"Aunt Sticks!" Tails called again, and the children ran back out to the hallway and toward the door of the library. As he ran, Tails couldn't help but remember how he and his siblings had called Uncle Knuckles' name, early one morning, just before discovering the tragedy that had befallen him. "Aunt Sticks!" he called. "Aunt Sticks!" He couldn't help but remember all the times he had woken up in the middle of the night, calling out the names of his parents as he dreamed, as he so often did, of the terrible fire that had claimed

their lives, along with calling out for his real parents. "Aunt Sticks!" he said, reaching the library door. Tails was afraid that he was calling out Aunt Sticks name when his aunt could no longer hear it.

"Look," Amy said, and pointed to the door. A piece of paper, folded in half, was attached to the wood with a thumbtack. Amy pried the paper loose and unfolded it.

"What is it?" Tails asked, and Sonic craned his little neck to see. "It's a note," Amy said, and read it out loud:

 _Tails, Amy, and Sonic_ -

By _the time you read this note, my life will be at it's end. My heart is as cold as ike and I find life inbearable. I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger, or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt, but please know that I am much happier this way. As my last will and testament, I leave you three in the care of Captain Sham, a kind and honorable men. Please think of me kindly even though I'd done this terriblething._

- _Your Aunt Sticks_

"Oh no," Amy said quietly when she was finished reading. She turned the piece of paper over and over as if she had read it incorrectly, as if it said something different. "Oh no," she said again, so faintly that it was as if she didn't even know he was speaking out loud.

Without a word Tails opened the door to the library, and the Hedges took a step inside and found themselves shivering. The room was freezing cold, and after one glance the orphans knew why. The Wide Window had shattered. Except for a few shards that still stuck to the window frame, the enormous pane of glass was gone, leaving a vacant hole that looked out into the still blackness of the night.

The cold night air rushed through the hole, rattling the bookshelves and making the children shiver up against one another, but despite the cold the orphans walked carefully to the empty space where the window had been, and looked down. The night was so black that it seemed as if there was absolutely nothing beyond the window. The children stood there for a moment and remembered the fear they had felt, just a few days ago, when they were standing in this very same spot. They knew now that their fear had been rational.

Huddling together, looking down into the blackness, the children knew that their plan to keep a careful watch had come too late. They had locked the barn door, but poor Aunt Sticks was already gone.

Five

 _Tails, Amy and Sonic_ -

 _By the time you read this note, my life will be at it's end. My heart is as cold as ike and I find life inbearable. I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger, or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt, but please know that I am much happier this way. As my last will and testament, I leave you three in the care of Captain Sham, a kind and honorable men. Please think of me kindly even though I'd done this terriblething._

- _Your Aunt Sticks_

 _"Stop it!"_ Tails cried. "Stop reading it out loud, Amy! We already know what it says."

"I just can't believe it," Amy said, turning the paper around for the umpteenth time. The orphans were sitting glumly around the dining-room table with the cold lime stew in bowls and dread in their hearts. Tails had called Mr. Silver Poe and told him what had happened, and the Hedges too anxious to sleep, had stayed up the whole night waiting for him to arrive on the first Fickle Ferry of the day. The candles were almost completely burned down, and Amy had to lean forward to read Sticks' note. "There's something funny about this note, but I can't put my finger on it."

"How can you say such a thing?" Tails asked. "Aunt Sticks has thrown herself out of the window. There's nothing funny about it at all."

"Not funny as in a funny joke," Amy said. "Funny as in a funny smell. Why, in the very first sentence she says 'my life will be at it's end.'"

"And now it is," Tails said, shuddering.

"That's not what I mean," Amy said impatiently. "She uses it's, I-T apostrophe-S, which always means 'it is.' But you wouldn't say 'my life will be at it is end.' She means I-T-S, 'belonging to it.'" He picked up Captain Sham's business card, which was still lying on the

table. "Remember when she saw this card?'Every boat has it's own sail.' She said it was a serious grammatical error."

"Who cares about grammatical errors," Tails asked, "when Aunt Sticks has jumped out the window?"

"But Aunt Sticks would have cared," Amy pointed out. "That's what she cared about most: grammar. Remember, she said it was the greatest joy in life."

"Well, it wasn't enough," Tails said sadly. "No matter how much she liked grammar, it says she found her life unbearable."

"But that's another error in the note," Amy said. "It doesn't say _unbearable,_ with a U. It says _in_ bearable, with an I."

 _"You_ are being unbearable, with a U," Tails cried. "And _you_ are being stupid, with an S," Amy snapped.

"Aget!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "Please stop fighting!"

Tails and Amy looked at their baby brother and then at one another. Oftentimes, when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.

"I'm sorry, Amy," Tails said meekly. "You're not unbearable. Our situation is unbearable."

"I know," Amy said miserably. "I'm sorry, too. You're not stupid, Tails. You're very clever. In fact, I hope you're clever enough to get us out of this situation. Aunt Sticks has jumped out the window and left us in the care of Captain Sham, and I don't know what we can do about it."

"Well, Mr. Siver Poe is on his way," Tails said. "He said on the phone that he would be here first thing in the morning, so we don't have long to wait. Maybe Mr. Silver Poe can be of some help."

"I guess so," Amy said, but she and her brothers looked at one another and sighed. They knew that the chances of Mr. Silver Poe being of much help were rather slim. When the Hedges lived with Count Eggman, Mr. Silver Poe was not helpful when the children told him about Count Eggman's cruelty. When the Hedges lived with Uncle Knuckles, Mr. Silver Poe was not helpful when the children told him about Count Eggman's treachery. It seemed clear that Mr. Silver Poe would not be of any help in this situation, either.

One of the candles burned out in a small puff of smoke, and the children sank down lower in their chairs. You probably know of a plant called the Venus flytrap, which grows in the tropics. The top of the plant is shaped like an open mouth, with tooth like spines around the edges. When a fly, attracted by the smell of the flower, lands on the Venus flytrap, the mouth of the plant begins to close, trapping the fly. The terrified fly buzzes around the closed mouth of the plant, but there is nothing it can do, and the plant slowly, slowly, dissolves the fly into nothing. As the darkness of the house closed in around them, the Hedge youngsters felt

like the fly in this situation. It was as if the disastrous fire that took the lives of their parents had been the beginning of a trap, and they hadn't even known it. They buzzed from place to place-Count Eggman's house in the city, Uncle Knuckles' home in the country, and now, Aunt Sticks' house overlooking the lake-but their own misfortune always closed around them, tighter and tighter, and it seemed to the three siblings that before too long they would dissolve away to nothing.

"We could rip up the note," Amy said finally. "Then Mr. Silver Poe wouldn't know about Aunt Sticks' wishes, and we wouldn't end up with Captain Sham."

"But I already told Mr. Silver Poe that Aunt Sticks left a note," Tails said.

"Well, we could do a forgery," Amysaid, using a word which here means "write something yourself and pretend somebody else wrote it." "We'll write everything she wrote, but we'll leave out the part about Captain Sham."

"Aha!" Sonic shrieked. This word was a favorite of Sonic's, and unlike most of his words, it needed no translation. What Sonic meant was "Aha!", an expression of discovery.

"Of course!" Tails cried. "That's what Captain Sham did! _He wrote_ this letter, not Aunt Sticks!"

Behind her glasses, Amy's eyes lit up. "That explains _it's!"_

"That explains _inbearable !"_ Tails said.

"Leep!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "Captain Sham threw Aunt Sticks out the window and then wrote this note to hide his crime."

"What a terrible thing to do," Amy said, shuddering as she thought of Aunt Sticks falling into the lake she feared so much.

"Imagine the terrible things he will do to us," Tails said, "if we don't expose his crime. I can't wait until Mr. Silver Poe gets here so we can tell him what happened."

With perfect timing, the doorbell rang, and the Hedges hurried to answer it. Tails led his siblings down the hallway, looking wistfully at the radiator as he remembered how afraid of it Aunt Sticks was. Amy followed closely behind, touching each doorknob gently in memory of Aunt Sticks' warnings about them shattering into pieces. And when they reached the door, Sonic looked mournfully at the welcome mat that Aunt Sticks thought could cause someone to break their neck. Aunt Sticks had been so careful to avoid anything that she thought might harm her, but harm had still come her way.

Tails opened the peeling white door, and there stood Mr. Silver Poe in the gloomy light of dawn. "Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said. He intended to tell him immediately of their forgery theory, but as soon as he saw him, standing in the doorway with a white handkerchief in one hand and a black briefcase in the other, his words stuck in him throat. Tears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason. "Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said again, and without any warning he and his siblings burst into tears. Tails cried, his shoulders shaking with sobs, and Amy cried,

The tears making her glasses slip down her nose, and Sonic cried, his open mouth revealing his four teeth. Mr. Silver Poe put down his briefcase and put away his handkerchief. He was not that good at comforting people, but he put his arms around the children the best he could, and murmured "There, there," which is a phrase some people murmur to comfort other people despite the fact that it doesn't really mean anything.

Mr. Silver Poe couldn't think of anything else to say that might have comforted the Hedge orphans, but I wish now that I had the power to go back in time and speak to these three sobbing children. If I could, I could tell the Hedges that like earthquakes and puppet shows, their tears were occurring not only without warning but without good reason. The youngsters were crying, of course, because they thought Aunt Sticks was dead, and I wish I had the power to go back and tell them that they were wrong. But of course, I cannot. I am not on top of the hill, overlooking Lake Lachrymose , on that gloomy morning. I am sitting in my room, in the middle of the night, writing down this story and looking out my window at the graveyard behind my home. I cannot tell the Hedge orphans that they are wrong, but I can tell you, as the orphans cry in Mr. Silver Poe's arms, that Aunt Sticks is not dead. Not yet.

Chapter 6

 _Mr._ Silver Poe frowned, sat down at the table, and took out his handkerchief. "Forgery?" he repeated. The Hedge orphans had shown him the shattered window in the library. They had shown him the note that had been thumb-tacked to the door. And they had shown him the business card with the grammatical mistake on it. "Forgery is a very serious charge," he said sternly, and blew his nose.

"Not as serious as murder," Tails pointed out. "And that's what Captain Sham did. He murdered Aunt Sticks and forged a note."

"But why would this Captain Sham person," Mr. Silver Poe asked, "go to all this trouble just to place you under his care?"

"We've already told you," Amy said, trying to hide her impatience. "Captain Sham is really Count Eggman in disguise."

"These are very serious accusations," Mr. Silver Poe said firmly. "I understand that the three of you have had some terrible experiences, and I hope you're not letting your imagination get the best of you. Remember when you lived with Uncle Knuckles? You were convinced that his assistant, Stephano, was really Count Eggman in disguise. The chances of him beaing here is as likely as the daily punctilio publishing a true story"

"But Stephano _was_ Count Eggman in disguise," Tails exclaimed.

"That's not the point," Mr. Silver Poe said. "The point is that you can't jump to conclusions. If you really think this note is a forgery, then we have to stop talking about disguises and do an investigation. Somewhere in this house, I'm sure we can find something that your Aunt Sticks has written. We can compare the handwriting and see if this note matches up."

The Hedge orphans looked at one another. "Of course," Amy said. "If the note we found on the library door doesn't match Aunt Sticks' handwriting, then it was obviously written by somebody else. We didn't think of that."

Mr. Silver Poe smiled. "You see? You are very intelligent children, but even the most intelligent people in the world often need the help of a banker. Now, where can we find a sample of Aunt Sticks' handwriting?"

"In the kitchen," Tails said promptly. "She left her shopping list in the kitchen when we got home from the market."

"Chuni!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "Let's go to the kitchen and get it," and that's exactly what they did. Aunt Sticks' kitchen was very small and had a large white sheet covering the stove and the oven-for safety, Aunt Sticks had explained, during her tour. There was a countertop where she prepared the food, a refrigerator where she stored the food, and a sink where she washed away the food nobody had eaten. To one side of the countertop was a small piece of paper on which Aunt Sticks had made her list, and Tails crossed the kitchen to retrieve it. Mr. Silver Poe turned on the lights, and Tails held the shopping list up to the note to see if they matched.

There are men and women who are experts in the field of handwriting analysis. They are called graphologists, and they attend graph logical schools in order to get their degree in graphology. You might think that this situation would call for a graphologist, but there are times when an expert's opinion is unnecessary. For instance, if a friend of yours brought you her pet dog, and said she was concerned because it wasn't laying eggs, you would not have to be a veterinarian to tell her that dogs do not lay eggs and so there was nothing to worry about.

Yes, there are some questions that are so simple that anyone can answer them, and Mr. Silver Poe and the Hedge orphans instantly knew the answer to the question "Does the handwriting on the shopping list match the handwriting on the note?" The answer was yes. When Aunt Sticks had written "Tomatoes" on the shopping list, she had curved the tips of the T into tiny spirals-the same spirals that decorated the tips of the T in "Tails," on the note. When she had written "Cucumbers" on the shopping list, the Cs were slightly squiggly, like earthworms, and the same earthworms appeared in the words "cold" and "Captain Sham" on the note. When Aunt Sticks had written "Limes" on the shopping list, the _i_ was dotted with an oval rather than a circle, just as it was in "my life will be at it's end." There was no doubt that Aunt Sticks had written on both the pieces of paper that Mr. Silver Poe and the Hedges were examining.

"I don't think there's any doubt that Aunt Sticks wrote on both these pieces of paper," Mr. Silver Poe said.

"But-" Tails began.

"There are no buts about it," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Look at the curvy Ts. Look at the squiggly C's. Look at the oval dots over the I's. I'm no graphologist, but I can certainly tell that these were written by the same person."

"You're right," Amy said miserably. "I know that Captain Sham is behind this somehow, but Aunt Sticks definitely wrote this note."

"And that," Mr. Silver Poe said, "makes it a legal document."

"Does that mean we have to live with Captain Sham?" Amy asked, her heart sinking. "I'm afraid so," Mr. Poe replied, with some sorrow. "Someone's last will and testament is an official statement of the wishes of the deceased. You were placed in Aunt Sticks' care, so she had the right to assign you to a new caretaker before she leaped out the window. It is very shocking, certainly, but it is entirely legal."

"We won't go live with him," Tails said fiercely. "He's the worst person on earth."

"He'll do something terrible, I know it," Amy said. "All he's after is the Hedge fortune."

"Gind!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something like "Please don't make us live with this evil man."

"I know you don't like this Captain Sham person," Mr. Silver Poe said, "but there's not much I can do about it. Believe me I would refuse to send you to this man, but I'm afraid the law says that that's where you'll go."

"We'll run away," Amy said.

"You will do nothing of the kind," Mr. Silver Poe said sternly. "Your parents entrusted me to see that you would be cared for properly. You want to honor your parents' wishes, don't you?"

"Well, yes," Tails said, "but-"

"Then please don't make a fuss," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Think of what your poor mother and father would say if they knew you were threatening to run away from your guardian."

The Hedge parents, of course, would have been horrified to learn that their children were to be in the care of Captain Sham, but before the children could say this to Mr. Silver Poe, he had moved on to other matters. "Now, I think the easiest thing to do would be to meet with Captain Sham and go over some details. Where is his business card? I'll phone him now."

"On the table, in the dining room," Amy said glumly, and Mr. Silver Poe left the kitchen to make the call. The Hedges looked at Aunt Sticks' shopping list and the suicide note.

"I just can't believe it," Tails said. "I was sure we were on the right track with the forgery idea."

"Me too," Amy said. "Captain Sham has done something here-I _know_ he has-but he's been even sneakier than usual."

"We'd better be smarter than usual, then," Tails replied, "because we've got to convince Mr. Silver Poe before it's too late."

"Well, Mr. Silver Poe said he had to go over some details," Amy said. "Perhaps that will take a long time."

"I got ahold of Captain Sham," Mr. Silver Poe said, coming back into the kitchen. "He was shocked to hear of Aunt Sticks' death but overjoyed at the prospect of raising you children. We're meeting him in a half hour for lunch at a restaurant in town, and after lunch we'll go over the details of your adoption. By tonight you should be staying in his house. I'm sure you're relieved that this can be sorted out so quickly."

Tails and Sonic stared at Mr. Silver Poe, too dismayed to speak. Amy was silent too, but she was staring hard at something else. She was staring at Aunt Sticks' note. Her eyes were focused in concentration behind her glasses as she stared and stared at it, without blinking. Mr. Silver Poe took his white handkerchief out of his pocket and coughed into it at great length and with great gusto, a word which here means "in a way which produced a great deal of phlegm." But none of the Hedges said a word.

"Well," Mr. Silver Poe said finally, "I will call for a taxicab. There's no use walking down that enormous hill. You children comb your hair and put your coats on. It's very windy out and it's getting cold. I think a storm might be approaching."

Mr. Silver Poe left to make his phone call, and the Hedges trudged to their room. Rather than comb their hair, however, Sonic and Tails immediately turned to Amy. "What?" Tails asked her.

" _What_ what?" Amy answered.

"Don't give me that _what_ what," Tails answered. "You've figured something out, that's _what_ what. I know you have. You were rereading Aunt Sticks' note for the umpteenth time, but you had an expression as if you had just figured something out. Now, what is it?"

"I'm not sure," Amy said, looking over the note one more time. "I might have begun figuring something out. Something that could help us. But I need more time."

"But we don't have any time!" Tails cried.

"We're going to have lunch with Captain Sham _right now!"_

"Then we're going to have to make some more time, somehow," Amy said determinedly. "Come on, children!" Mr. Silver Poe called from the hallway. "The cab will be here any minute! Get your coats and let's go!"

Tails sighed, but went to the closet and took out all three Hedges' coats. He handed Amy her coat, and buttoned Sonic into his coat as he talked to his sister. "How can we make more time?" Tails asked.

"You're the inventor," Amy answered, buttoning her coat.

"But you can't invent things like time," Tails said. "You can invent things like automatic popcorn poppers. You can invent things like steam-powered window washers. But you can't invent more _time.''_ Tails was so certain he couldn't invent more time that he didn't even put his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. He merely gave Amy a look of frustration and confusion, and started to put on his coat. But as he did up the buttons he realized he didn't even need to put his bangs up in a ribbon, because the answer was right there with him.

Seven

 _"Hello,_ I'm Larry, your waiter," said Larry, the Hedge orphans' waiter. He was a short, skinny wolf in a goofy clown costume with a name tag pinned to his chest that read LARRY . "Welcome to the Anxious Clown restaurant- where everybody has a good time, whether they like it or not. I can see we have a whole family lunching together today, so allow me to recommend the Extra Fun Special Family Appetizer. It's a bunch of things fried up together and served with a sauce."

"What a wonderful idea," Captain Sham said, smiling in a way that showed all of his yellow teeth. "An Extra Fun Special Family Appetizer for an extra fun special family- _mine''_

"I'll just have water, thank you," Tails said.

"Same with me," Amy said. "And a glass of ice cubes for my baby brother, please."

"I'll have a cup of coffee with nondairy creamer," Mr. Silver Poe said.

"Oh, no, Mr. Silver Poe," Captain Sham said. "Let's share a nice big bottle of red wine."

"No, thank you, Captain Sham," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I don't like to drink during banking hours." "But this is a celebratory lunch," Captain Sham exclaimed. "We should drink a toast to my three new children. It's not every day that a man becomes a father."

"Please, Captain," Mr. Silver Poe said. "It is heartening to see that you are glad to raise the Hedges, but you must understand that the children are rather upset about their Aunt Sticks."

There is a lizard called the chameleon that, as you probably know, can change color instantly to blend into its surroundings. Besides being slimy and cold-blooded, Captain Sham resembled the chameleon in that he was chameleonic, a word means "able to blend in with any situation." Since Mr Silver Poe and the Hedges had arrived at the Anxious Clown, Captain Sham had been unable to conceal his excitement at having the children almost in his clutches.

But now that Mr. Silver Poe had pointed out that the occasion actually called for sadness, Captain Sham instantly began to speak in a mournful voice. "I am upset, too," he said, brushing a tear away from beneath his eye patch. " Sticks was one of my oldest and dearest friends."

"You met her _yesterday"'_ Amy said, "in the grocery store."

"It does only seem like yesterday," Captain Sham said, "but it was really years ago. She and I met in cooking school. We were oven partners in the Advanced Baking Course."

"You weren't _even partners"_ Tails said, disgusted at Captain Sham's lies. "Aunt Sticks was desperately afraid of turning on the oven. She never would have attended cooking school."

"We soon became friends," Captain Sham said, going on with his story as if no one had interrupted, "and one day she said to me, 'if I ever adopt some orphans and then meet an untimely death, promise me you will raise them for me.' I told her I would, but of course I never thought I would have to keep my promise."

"That's a very sad story," Larry said, and everyone turned to see that their waiter was still standing over them. "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion. In that case, allow me to recommend the Cheer-Up Cheeseburgers. The pickles, mustard, and ketchup make a little smiley face on top of the burger, which is guaranteed to get you smiling, too."

"That sounds like a good idea," Captain Sham said. "Bring us all Cheer-Up Cheeseburgers, Larry."

"They'll be here in a jiffy," the waiter promised, and at last he was gone.

"Yes, yes," Mr. Silver Poe said, "but after we've finished our cheeseburgers, Captain Sham, there are some important papers for you to sign. I have them in my briefcase, and after lunch we'll look them over."

"And then the children will be mine?" Captain Sham asked.

"Well, you will be caring for them, yes," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Of course, the Hedge fortune will still be under my supervision, until Tails comes of age."

"What fortune?" Captain Sham asked, his eyebrow curling. "I don't know anything about a fortune."

"Duna!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "Of course you do!" "The Hedge parents," Mr. Silver Poe explained, "left an enormous fortune behind, and the

children inherit it when Tails comes of age."

"Well, I have no interest in a fortune," Captain Sham said. "I have my sailboats. I wouldn't touch a penny of it."

"Well, that's good," Mr. Silver Poe said, "because you _can't_ touch a penny of it."

"We'll see," Captain Sham said. "What?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

"Here are your Cheer-Up Cheeseburgers!" Larry sang out, appearing at their table with a tray full of greasy-looking food. "Enjoy your meal."

Like most restaurants filled with neon lights and balloons, the Anxious Clown served terrible food. But the three orphans had not eaten all day, and had not eaten anything warm for a long time, so even though they were sad and anxious they found themselves with quite an appetite. After a few minutes without conversation, Mr. Silver Poe began to tell a very dull story about something that had happened at the bank. Mr. Silver Poe was so busy talking, Amy and Sonic were so busy pretending to be interested, and Captain Sham was so busy wolfing down his meal, that nobody noticed what Tails was up to.

When Tails had put on his coat to go out into the wind and cold, he had felt the lump of something in his pocket. The lump was the bag of peppermints that Mr. Silver Poe had given the Hedges the day they had arrived at Lake Lachrymose , and it had given him an idea. As Mr. Silver Poe droned on and on, he carefully, carefully, took the bag of peppermints out of his coat pocket and opened it. To her dismay, they were the kind of peppermints that are each wrapped up in a little bit of cellophane. Placing his hands underneath the table, he unwrapped three peppermints, using the utmost-the word "utmost," when it is used here, means "most"- care not to make any of those crinkling noises that come from unwrapping candy and are so annoying in movie theaters. At last, he had three bare peppermints sitting on the napkin in his lap. Without drawing attention to himself, she put one on Amy's lap and one on Sonic's.

When his younger siblings felt something appear in their laps and looked down and saw the peppermints, they at first thought the eldest Hedge orphan had lost his mind. But after a moment, they understood.

If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats. But the children all knew that this was an emergency. They needed time alone to figure out Captain Sham's plan, and how to stop it, and although causing allergic reactions is a rather drastic way of getting time by yourself, it was the only thing they could think of. So while neither of the adults at the table were watching, all three children put the peppermints into their mouths and waited.

The Hedge allergies are famous for being quick-acting, so the orphans did not have long to wait. In a few minutes, Tails began to break out in red, itchy hives, Amy's tongue started to swell up, and Sonic, who of course had never eaten a peppermint, broke out in hives _and_ had her tongue swell up.

Mr. Silver Poe finally finished telling his story and then noticed the orphans' condition. "Why, children," he said, "you look _terrible!_ Tails, you have red patches on your skin. Amy, your tongue is hanging out of your mouth. Sonic, both things are happening to you."

"There must be something in this food that we're allergic to," Tails said.

"My goodness," Mr. Silver Poe said, watching a hive on Tails' arm grow to the size of a hardboiled egg.

"Just take deep breaths," Captain Sham said, scarcely looking up from his cheeseburger.

"I feel terrible," Tails said, and Sonic began to wail. "I think we should go home and lie down, Mr. Silver Poe."

"Just lean back in your seat," Captain Sham said sharply. "There's no reason to leave when we're in the middle of lunch."

"Why, Captain Sham," Mr. Silver Poe said concernedly, "the children are quite ill. Tails is right. Come now, I'll pay the bill and we'll take the children home."

"No, no," Tails said quickly. "We'll get a taxi. You two stay here and take care of all the details."

Captain Sham gave Tails a sharp look. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you all alone," he said in a dark voice.

"Well, there is a lot of paperwork to go over," Mr. Silver Poe said. He glanced at his meal, and the Hedges could see he was not too eager to leave the restaurant and care for sick children. "We wouldn't be leaving them alone for long."

"Our allergies are fairly mild," Tails said truthfully, scratching at one of his hives. He stood up and led his swollen-tongued siblings toward the front door. "We'll just lie down for an hour or two while you have a relaxing lunch. When you have signed all the papers, Captain Sham, you can just come and retrieve us."

Captain Sham's one visible eye grew as shiny as Tails had ever seen it. "I'll do that," he replied. "I'll come and retrieve you very, very soon."

"Good-bye, children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I hope you feel better soon. You know, Captain Sham, there is someone at my bank who has terrible allergies. Why, I remember one time ..."

"Leaving so soon?" Larry asked the three children as they buttoned up their coats. Outside, the wind was blowing harder, and it had started to drizzle as Hurricane Herman got closer and closer to Lake Lachrymose . But even so, the three children were eager to leave the Anxious Clown, and not just because the garish restaurant-the word "garish" here means "filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters"-was filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters. The Hedges knew that they had invented just a little bit of time for themselves, and they had to use every second of it.

Eight

 _When_ someone's tongue swells up due to an allergic reaction, it is often difficult to understand what they are saying.

"Bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh," Amy said, as the three children got out of the taxi and headed toward the peeling white door of Aunt Sticks' house.

"I don't understand what you're saying," Tails said, scratching at a hive on his neck that was the exact shape of the state of Minnesota .

 _"Bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh,"_ Amy repeated, or perhaps she was saying something else; I haven't the faintest idea.

"Never mind, never mind," Tails said, opening the door and ushering his siblings inside. "Now you have the time that you need to figure out whatever it is that you're figuring out."

"Bluh bluh bluh," Amy bluhed.

"I still can't understand you," Tails said. He took Sonic's coat off, and then his own, and dropped them both on the floor. Normally, of course, one should hang up one's coat on a hook or in a closet, or in a wardrobe but itchy hives are very irritating and tend to make one abandon such matters. "I'm going to assume, Amy, that you said something in agreement. Now, unless you need us to help you, I'm going to give Sonic and myself a baking soda bath to help our hives."

"Bluh!" Sonic shrieked. He meant to shriek "Gans!" which meant something along the lines of "Good, because my hives are driving me crazy!"

"Bluh," Amy said, nodding vigorously, and he began hurrying down the hallway. Amy had not taken off his coat, but it wasn't because of her own irritating allergic condition. It was because she was going someplace cold.

When Amy opened the door of the library, she was surprised at how much had changed. The wind from the approaching hurricane had blown away the last of the window, and the rain had soaked some of Aunt Sticks' comfortable chairs, leaving dark, spreading stains. A few books had fallen from their shelves and blown over to the window, where water had swollen them. There are few sights sadder than a ruined book, but Amy had no time to be sad. He knew Captain Sham would come and retrieve the Hedges as soon as he could, so he had to get right to work. First he took Aunt Sticks' note out of her pocket and placed it on the table, weighing it down with books so it wouldn't blow away in the wind. Then she crossed quickly to the shelves and began to scan the spines of the books, looking for titles. He chose three: _Basic Rules of Grammar and Punctuation, Handbook for Advanced Apostrophe Use,_ and _The Correct Spelling of Every English Word That Ever, Ever Existed._ Each of the books was as thick as a watermelon, and Amy staggered under the weight of carrying all three. With a loud _thump_ she dropped them on the table. "Bluh bluh bluh, bluh bluh bluh bluh," she mumbled to herself, and found a pen and got to work.

A library is normally a very good place to work in the afternoon, but not if its window has been smashed and there is a hurricane approaching. The wind blew colder and colder, and it rained harder and harder, and the room became more and more unpleasant. But Amy took no notice of this. She opened all of the books and took copious-the word "copious" here means "lots of-notes, stopping every so often to draw a circle around some part of what Aunt Sticks had written. It began to thunder outside, and with each roll of thunder the entire house shook, but Amy kept flipping pages and writing things down. Then, as lightning began to flash outside, she stopped, and stared at the note for a long time, frowning intently. Finally, she wrote two words at the bottom of Aunt Sticks' note, concentrating so hard as she did so that when Tails and Sonic entered the library and called out her name he nearly jumped out of her chair.

"Bluh surprised bluh!" she shrieked, her heart pounding and her tongue a bit less swollen.

"I'm sorry," Tails said. "I didn't mean to surprise you."

"Bluh bluh take a baking soda bluh?" she asked.

"No," Tails replied. "We couldn't take a baking soda bath. Aunt Sticks doesn't have any baking soda, because she never turns on the oven to bake. We just took a regular bath. But that doesn't matter, Amy. What have _you_ been doing, in this freezing room? Why have you drawn circles all over Aunt Sticks' note?"

"Bluhdying grammar," she replied, gesturing to the books.

"Bluh?" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "gluh?" which meant something along the lines of "Why are you wasting valuable time studying grammar?"

"Bluhcause," Amy explained impatiently, "I think bluh Sticks left us a message in bluh note."

"She was miserable, and she threw herself out the window," Tails said, shivering in the wind. "What other message could there be?"

"There are too many grammatical mistakes in the bluh," Amy said. "Aunt Sticks loved grammar, and she'd never make that many mistakes unless she had a bluh reason. So that's what I've been doing bluh-counting up the grammatical mistakes."

"Bluh," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "Please continue, Amy."

Amy wiped a few raindrops off her glasses and looked down at his notes. "Well, we already know that bluh first sentence uses the wrong 'its.' I think that was to get our attention. But look at the second bluhtence. 'My heart is as cold as Ike and I find life inbearable.'"

"But the correct word is _un_ bearable," Tails said. "You told us that already."

"Bluh I think there's more," Amy said. '"My heart is as cold as Ike' doesn't sound right to me. Remember, Aunt Sticks told us bluh liked to think of her husband someplace very hot."

"That's true," Tails said, remembering. "She said it right here in this very room. She said Ike liked the sunshine and so she imagined him someplace sunny."

"So I think Aunt Bluh meant 'cold as _ice"'_ Amy said.

"Okay, so we have _ice_ and _un_ bearable. So far this doesn't mean anything to me," Tails said.

"Me neither," Amy said. "But look at bluh next part. 'I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger.' We don't have any children."

"That's true," Tails said. "I'm not planning to have children until I am considerably older."

"So why would Aunt Sticks say 'your children'? I think she meant _'you_ children.' And I looked up 'dowadger' in _The Correct Spelling of Every English Word That Ever, Ever Existed.'"_

"Why?" Tails asked. "You already know it's a fancy word for widow."

"It _is_ a bluhncy word for widow," Amy replied, "but it's spelled D-O-W-A-G-E-R. Aunt bluh added an extra D."

"Cold as _ice"_ Tails said, counting on her fingers, " _un_ bearable, _you_ children, and an extra D in dowager. That's not much of a message, Amy."

"Let me finish," Amy said. "I discovered even more grammbluhtical mistakes. When she wrote, 'or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt,' she meant 'what would have _led_ me,' and the word 'act,' of course, is spelled with a C."

"Coik!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Thinking about all this is making me dizzy!"

"Me too, Sonic," Tails said, lifting his brother up so he could sit on the table. "But let her finish."

"There are just bluh more," Amy said, holding up two fingers. "One, she calls Captain Sham 'a kind and honorable men,' when she should have said 'a kind and honorable _man.'_ And in the last sentence, Aunt Sticks wrote 'Please think of me kindly even though I'd done this terrible thing,' but according to the _Handbook for Advanced Apostrophe Use,_ she should have written 'even though _I've_ done this terrible thing.'"

"But so what?" Tails asked. "What do all these mistakes mean?"

Amy smiled, and showed her brothers the two words he had written on the bottom of the note.

"Curdled Cave," she read out loud.

"Curdled _veek ?'_ Sonic asked, which meant "Curdled _what?"_

"Curdled Cave," Amy repeated. "If you take all the letters involved in the grammatical mistakes, that's what it spells. Look: C for ice instead of Ike. U for unbearable instead of inbearable. The extra R in your children instead of you children, and the extra D in dowager. L-ED for led instead of leaded. C for act instead of akt. A for man instead of men. And V-E for I've instead of I'd. That spells CURDLED CAVE. Don't you see? Aunt Sticks _knew_ she was making grammatical errors, and she knew we'd spot them. She was leaving us a message, and the message is Curdled-"

A great gust of wind interrupted Amy as it came through the shattered window and shook the library as if it were maracas, a word which describes rattling percussion instruments used in Latin American music. Everything rattled wildly around the library as the wind flew through it. Chairs and footstools flipped over and fell to the floor with their legs in the air. The bookshelves rattled so hard that some of the heaviest books in Aunt Sticks' collection spun off into puddles of rainwater on the floor. And the Hedge orphans were jerked violently to the ground as a streak of lightning flashed across the darkening sky.

"Let's get out of here!" Tails shouted over the noise of the thunder, and grabbed his siblings by the hand. The wind was blowing so hard that the Hedges felt as if they were climbing an enormous hill instead of walking to the door of the library. The orphans were quite out of breath by the time they shut the library door behind them and stood shivering in the hallway.

"Poor Aunt Sticks," Tails said. "Her library is wrecked."

"But I need to go back in there," Amy said, holding up the note. "We just found out what Aunt Sticks means by Curdled Cave , and we need a library to find out more."

"Not that library," Tails pointed out. "All that library had were books on grammar. We need her books on Lake Lachrymose ."

"Why?" Amy asked.

"Because I'll bet you anything that's where Curdled Cave is," Tails said, "in Lake Lachrymose . Remember she said she knew every island in its waters and every cave on its shore? I bet Curdled Cave is one of those caves."

"But why would her secret message be about some cave?" Amy asked.

"You've been so busy figuring out the message," Tails said, "that you don't understand what it means. Aunt Sticks isn't dead. She just wants people to _think_ she's dead. But she wanted to tell _us_ that she was hiding. We have to find her books on Lake Lachrymose and find out where Curdled Cave is."

"But first we have to know where the books are," Amy said. "She told us she hid them away, remember?"

Sonic shrieked something in agreement, but his siblings couldn't hear him over a burst of thunder.

"Let's see," Tails said. "Where would you hide something if you didn't want to look at it?"

The Hedge orphans were quiet as they thought of places they had hidden things they did not want to look at, back when they had lived with their parents in the Hedge home. Tails thought of an automatic harmonica he had invented that had made such horrible noises that he had hidden it so he didn't have to think of his failure. Amy thought of a book on the Franco- Prussian War that was so difficult that she had hidden it so as not to be reminded that she wasn't old enough to read it. And Sonic thought of a piece of stone that was too hard for even his sharpest tooth, and how he had hidden it so his jaw would no longer ache from his many attempts at conquering it. And all three Hedge orphans thought of the hiding place they had chosen.

"Underneath the bed," Tails said. "Underneath the bed," Amy agreed.

"Seeka yit," Sonic agreed, and without another word the three children ran down the hallway to Aunt Sticks' room. Normally it is not polite to go into somebody's room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be dead, and the Hedges went right inside. Aunt Sticks' room was similar to the orphans', with a royal-blue bedspread on the bed and a pile of tin cans in the corner. There was a small window looking out onto the rain-soaked hill, and a pile of new grammar books by the side of the bed that Aunt Sticks had not started reading, and, I'm sad to say, would never read. But the only part of the room that interested the children was underneath the bed, and the three of them knelt down to look there.

Aunt Sticks, apparently, had plenty of things she did not want to look at anymore. Underneath the bed there were pots and pans, which she didn't want to look at because they reminded her of the stove. There were ugly socks somebody had given her as a gift that were too ugly for human eyes. There was even, to the Hedges surprise a boomerang, and a pile of exploring equipment. And the Hedges were sad to see a framed photograph of a kind- looking badger with a handful of crackers in one hand and his lips pursed as if he were whistling. It was Ike, and the Hedges knew that she had placed his photograph there because she was too sad to look at it. But behind one of the biggest pots was a stack of books, and the orphans immediately reached for it.

 _"The Tides of Lake Lachrymose,"_ Tails said, reading the title of the top book. "That won't help."

 _"The Bottom of Lake Lachrymose ,"_ Amy said, reading the next one. "That's not useful."

 _"Lachrymose Trout,"_ Tails read.

 _"The History of the Damocles Dock Region,_ " Amy read.

 _"Ivan Lachrymose_ - _Lake Explorer,"_ Tails read.

 _"How Water Is Made,"_ Amy read.

 _"A Lachrymose Atlas,"_ Tails said.

"Atlas? That's perfect!" Amy cried. "An atlas is a book of maps!"

There was a flash of lightning outside the window, and it began to rain harder, making a sound on the roof like somebody was dropping marbles on it. Without another word the Hedges opened the atlas and began flipping pages. They saw map after map of the lake, but they couldn't find Curdled Cave.

"This book is five hundred seventy-eight pages long," Amy exclaimed, looking at the last page of the atlas. "It'll take forever to find Curdled Cave ."

"We don't have forever," Tails said. "Captain Sham is probably on his way here now.

Use the index in the back. Look under 'Curdled.'"

Amy flipped to the index, which I'm sure you know is an alphabetical list of each thing a book contains and what page it's on. Amy ran her finger down the list of the C words, muttering out loud to herself. "Carp Cove, Chartreuse Island, Cloudy Cliffs, Condiment Bay

, Curdled Cave-here it is! Curdled Cave, page three hundred and ninety four." Quickly Amy flipped to the correct page and looked at the detailed map. "Curdled Cave, Curdled Cave , where is it?"

"There it is!" Tails pointed a finger at the tiny spot on the map marked _Curdled Cave ._

"Directly across from Damocles Dock and just west of the Lavender Lighthouse. Let's go."

"Go?" Amy said. "How will we get across the lake?"

"The Fickle Ferry will take us," Tails said, pointing at a dotted line on the map. "Look, the ferry goes right to the Lavender Lighthouse, and we can walk from there."

"We're going to walk to Damocles Dock, in all this rain?" Amy asked.

"We don't have any choice," Tails answered. "We have to prove that Aunt Sticks is still alive, or else Captain Sham gets us."

"I just hope she is still-" Amy started to say, but she stopped himself and pointed out the window. "Look!"

Tails and Sonic looked. The window in Aunt Sticks' bedroom looked out onto the hill, and the orphans could see one of the spidery metal stilts that kept Aunt Sticks' house from falling into the lake. But they could also see that this stilt had been badly damaged by the howling storm. There was a large black burn mark, undoubtedly from lightning, and the wind had bent the stilt into an uneasy curve. As the storm raged around them, the orphans watched the stilt struggle to stay attached.

"Tafca!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "We have to get out of here _right now!"_

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "Grab the atlas and let's go."

Amy grabbed _A Lachrymose Atlas,_ not wanting to think what would be happening if they were still leafing through the book and had not looked up at the window. As the youngsters stood up, the wind rose to a feverish pitch, a phrase which here means "it shook the house and sent all three orphans toppling to the floor."

Tails fell against one of the bedposts and banged his knee. Amy fell against the cold radiator and banged her foot. And Sonic fell into the pile of tin cans and banged everything. The whole room seemed to lurch slightly to one side as the orphans staggered back to their feet. "Come on!" Tails screamed, and grabbed Sonic. The orphans scurried out to the hallway and toward the front door. A piece of the ceiling had come off, and rainwater was steadily pouring onto the carpet, splattering the orphans as they ran underneath it. The house gave another lurch, and the children toppled to the floor again. Aunt Sticks' house was starting to slip off the hill. "Come on!" Tails screamed again, and the orphans stumbled up the tilted hallway to the door, slipping in puddles and on their own frightened feet. Amy was the first to reach the front door, and yanked it open as the house gave another lurch, followed by a horrible, horrible crunching sound. "Come on!" Tails screamed again, and the Hedges crawled out of the door and onto the hill, huddling together in the freezing rain. They were cold. They were frightened. But they had escaped.

I have seen many amazing things in my long and troubled life history. I have seen a series of corridors built entirely out of human skulls. I have seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava crawling toward a small village. I have seen a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest. But I still cannot imagine what it was like to watch Aunt Sticks' house topple into Lake Lachrymose . My own research tells me that the children watched in mute amazement as the peeling white door slammed shut and began to crumple, as you might crumple a piece of paper into a ball. I have been told that the children hugged each other even more tightly as they heard the rough and earsplitting noise of their home breaking loose from the side of the hill. But I cannot tell you how it felt to watch the whole building fall down, down, down, and hit the dark and stormy waters of the lake below

Chapter 9

The United state postal service has a motto. The motto is: "Neither rain or sleet of driving snow shall halt the delivery of mails" all this means that even if the weather is nasty and your

mailperson wants to stay inside and enjoy a cup of cocoa, he or she has to bundle up and go outside and deliver your mail anyway. The United States Postal Service does not think that icy storms should interfere with its duties.

The Hedge orphans were distressed to learn that the Fickle Ferry had no such policy. Tails, Amy and Sonic had made their way down the hill with much difficulty, that Tails cant fly and Sonic can't even run. The storm was rising, and the children could tell that the wind and the rain wanted nothing more than to grab them and throw them into the raging waters of Lake Lachrymose . Tails and Sonic hadn't had the time to grab their coats as they escaped the house, so all three children took turns wearing Amy's coat as they stumbled along the flooding road. Once or twice a car drove by, and the Hedges had to scurry into the muddy bushes and hide, in case Captain Sham was coming to retrieve them. When they finally reached Damocles Dock, their teeth were chattering and their feet were so cold they could scarcely feel their toes, and the sight of the CLOSED sign in the window of the Fickle Ferry ticket booth was just about more than they could stand.

"It's _closed"_ Tails cried, his voice rising with despair and in order to be heard over Hurricane Herman. "How will we get to Curdled Cave now?"

"We'll have to wait until it opens," Amy replied.

"But it won't open until the storm is past," Tails pointed out, "and by then Captain Sham will find us and take us far away. We have to get to Aunt Sticks as soon as possible."

"I don't know how we can," Tails said, shivering. "The atlas says that the cave is all the way across the lake, and we can't _swim_ all that way in this weather."

"Entro!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "And we don't have enough time to walk around the lake, either."

"There must be other boats on this lake," Amy said, "besides the ferry. Motorboats, or fishing boats, or-" She trailed off, and her eyes met those of his brothers. All three orphans were thinking the same thing.

"Or _sailboats"_ Tails finished for her. "Captain Sham's Sailboat Rentals. He said it was right on Damocles Dock."

The Hedges stood under the awning of the ticket booth and looked down at the far end of the deserted dock, where they could see a metal gate that was very tall and had glistening spikes on the top of it. Hanging over the metal gate was a sign with some words they couldn't read, and next to the sign there was a small shack, scarcely visible in the rain, with a flickering light in the window. The children looked at it with dread in their hearts. Walking into Captain Sham's Sailboat Rentals in order to find Aunt Sticks would feel like walking into a lion's den in order to escape from a lion.

"We can't go there," Tails said.

"We have to," Amy said. "We know Captain Sham isn't there, because he's either on his way to Aunt Sticks' house or still at the Anxious Clown."

"But whoever _is_ there," Tails said, pointing to the flickering light, "won't let us rent a sailboat."

"They won't know we're the Hedges," Amy replied. "We'll tell whoever it is that we're the Jones children and that we want to go for a sail."

"In the middle of a hurricane?" Tails replied. "They won't believe that."

"They'll have to," Amy said resolutely, a word which here means "as if she believed it, even though she wasn't so sure," and she led her siblings toward the shack, while clasping the atlas close to her chest, and Sonic, whose turn it was for Amy's coat, clutched it around himself, and soon the Hedges were shivering underneath the sign that read: CAPTAIN SHAM'S SAILBOAT RENTALS-EVERY BOAT HAS IT'S OWN SAIL. But the tall metal

gate was locked up tight, and the Hedges paused there, anxious about going inside the shack.

"Let's take a look," Amy whispered, pointing to a window, but it was too high for her or Sonic to use. Using his tails to fly a few feet, Tails peered into the window of the shack and with one glance he knew there was no way they could rent a sailboat.

The shack was very small, with only room for a small desk and a single lightbulb, which was giving off the flickering light. But at the desk, asleep in a chair, was a person so massive that it looked like an enormous purple blob was in the shack, snoring away with a bottle of beer in one hand and a ring of keys in the other. As the person snored, the bottle shook, the keys jangled, and the door of the shack creaked open an inch or two, but although those noises were quite spooky, they weren't what frightened Tails. What frightened Tails was that you couldn't tell if this person was a man or a woman. There aren't very many people like that in the world, and Tails knew which one this was. Perhaps you have forgotten about Count Eggman's evil comrades, but the Hedges had seen them in the flesh-lots of flesh, in this comrade's case-and remembered all of them in gruesome detail. These people were rude, and they were sneaky, and they did whatever Count Eggman-or in this case, Captain Sham-told them to do, and the orphans never knew when they would turn up. And now, one had turned up right there in the shack, dangerous, treacherous, and snoring.

Tails' face must have shown his disappointment, because as soon as he came down, and took a look Amy asked, "What's wrong? I mean, besides Hurricane Herman, and Aunt Sticks faking her own death, and Captain Sham coming after us and everything."

"One of Count Eggman's comrades is in the shack," Tails said.

"Which one?" Amy asked.

"The one who looks like neither a man nor a woman," Tails replied, shuddering. "That's the scariest one."

"I disagree," Amy said. "I think the bald one is scariest."

"Vass!" Sonic whispered, which probably meant "Let's discuss this at another time."

"Did he or she see you?" Amy asked.

"No," Tails said. "He or she is asleep. But he or she is holding a ring of keys. We'll need them, I bet, to unlock the gate and get a sailboat."

"You mean we're going to steal a sailboat?" Amy asked.

"We have no choice," Tails said. Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it might be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it. "We have to get to Curdled Cave as quickly as possible," Tails continued, "and the only way we can do it is to steal a sailboat."

"I know that," Amy said, "but how are we going to get the keys?"

"I don't know," Tails admitted. "The door of the shack is creaky, and I'm afraid if we open it any wider we'll wake him or her up."

"You could fly through the window," Amy said, "Sonic could keep watch."

"Where _is_ Sonic?" Tails asked nervously.

Tails and Amy looked down at the ground and saw Amy's coat sitting alone in a little heap. They looked down the dock but only saw the Fickle Ferry ticket booth and the foamy waters of the lake, darkening in the gloom of the late afternoon.

"He's gone!" Amy cried, but Tails put a finger to his lips and flew up to look in the window again. Sonic was crawling through the open door of the shack, flattening his little body enough so as not to open the door any wider.

"He's inside," Tails murmured.

"In the shack?" Amy said in a horrified gasp. "Oh no. We have to stop him." "He's crawling very slowly toward that person," Tails said, afraid even to blink.

"We promised our parents we'd take care of him," Amy said. "We can't let him do this."

"He's reaching toward the key ring," Tails said breathlessly. "He's gently prying it loose from the person's hand."

"Don't tell me any more," Amy said, as a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. "No, do tell me. What is happening?"

"He has the keys," Tails said. "He's putting them in his mouth to hold them. He's crawling back toward the door. He's flattening herself and crawling through."

"He's made it," Amy said in amazement. Sonic came half crawling half running triumphantly toward the orphans, the keys in his mouth. "Tails, he made it," Amy said, giving Sonic a hug as a huge _boom!_ of thunder echoed across the sky.

Amy smiled down at Sonic, but stopped smiling when she looked back into the shack. The thunder had awoken Count Eggman's comrade, and Amy watched in dismay as the person looked at its empty hand where the key ring had been, and then down on the floor where Sonic had left little crawl-prints of rainwater, and then up to the window and right into Tails' eyes.

"She's awake!" Tails shrieked, coming don to the ground. "He's awake! It's awake! Hurry, Amy, open the gate and I'll try to distract it."

Without another word, Amy took the key ring from Sonic's mouth and hurried to the tall metal gate. There were three keys on the ring- a skinny one, a thick one, and one with teeth as jagged as the glistening spikes hanging over the children. She put the atlas down on the ground and began to try the skinny key in the lock, just as Count Eggman's comrade came lumbering out of the shack.

His heart in his throat, Tails stood in front of the creature and gave it a fake smile. "Good afternoon," he said, not knowing whether to add "sir" or "madam." "I seem to have gotten lost on this dock. Could you tell me the way to the Fickle Ferry?"

Count Eggman's comrade did not answer, but kept shuffling toward the orphans. The skinny key fit into the lock but didn't budge, and Amy tried the thick one.

"I'm sorry," Tails said, "I didn't hear you. Could you tell me-"

Without a word the mountainous person grabbed Tails by the tails, and with one swing of its arm lifted him up over its smelly shoulder the way you might carry a backpack. Amy couldn't get the thick key to fit in the lock and tried the jagged one, just as the person scooped up Sonic with its other hand and held him up, the way you might hold an ice cream cone. _"Amy!"_ Tails screamed. _"Amy!"_ The jagged key wouldn't fit in the lock, either. Amy, in frustration, shook and shook the metal gate. Tails was kicking the creature from behind, and Sonic was biting its wrist, but the person was so Brobdingnagian-a word which here means "unbelievably husky"-that the children were causing it minimal pain, a phrase which here means "no pain at all." Count Eggman's comrade lumbered toward Amy, holding the other two orphans in its grasp. In desperation, Amy tried the skinny key again in the lock, and to her surprise and relief it turned and the tall metal gate swung open. Just a few feet away were six sailboats tied to the end of the dock with thick rope-sailboats that could take them to Aunt Sticks. But Amy was too late. She felt something grab the back of her shirt, and she was lifted up in the air. Something slimy began running down her back, and Amy realized with horror that the person was holding her in his or her mouth.

"Put me down!" Amy screamed. "Put me down!" "Put me down!" Tails yelled. "Put me down!" "Poda rish!" Sonic shrieked. "Poda rish!"

But the lumbering creature had no concern for the wishes of the Hedge orphans. With great sloppy steps it turned itself around and began to carry the youngsters back toward the shack. The children heard the gloppy sound of its chubby feet sloshing through the rain, _gumsh , gumsh, gumsh, gumsh._ But then, instead of a _gumsh ,_ there was a _skittle-wat_ as the person stepped on Aunt Sticks' atlas, which slipped from under its feet. Count Eggman's comrade waved its arms to keep its balance, dropping Tails and Sonic, and then fell to the ground, opening its mouth in surprise and dropping Amy. The orphans, being in reasonably good physical shape, got to their feet much more quickly than this despicable creature, and ran through the open gate to the nearest sailboat. The creature struggled to right itself and chase them, but Sonic had already bitten the rope that tied the boat to the dock. By the time the creature reached the spiky metal gate, the orphans were already on the stormy waters of Lake Lachrymose . In the dim light of the late afternoon, Amy wiped the grime of the creature's foot off the cover of the atlas, and began to read it. Aunt Sticks' book of maps had saved them once, in showing them the location of Curdled Cave , and now it had saved them again.

Chapter 10

The good people who are publishing this book have a concern that they are expressing to me. The concern is that readers like yourself will read my history of the Hedge orphans and attempt to itimate the things that they do. So at this point in the story, in order to mollify the publishers a word which here means 'get them to stop tearing their hair out in worry'

please allow me to give you a piece of advice, even though I don't know anything about you. The piece of advice is as follows: If you ever need to get to Curdled Cave in a hurry, do not, under any circumstances, steal a boat and attempt to sail across Lake Lachrymose during

a hurricane, because it is very dangerous and the chances of your survival are practically zero. You should especially not do this if, like the Hedge orphans, you have only a vague idea of how to work a sailboat.

Count Eggman's comrade, standing at the dock and waving a chubby fist in the air, grew smaller and smaller as the wind carried the sailboat away from Damocles Dock. As Hurricane Herman raged over them, Tails, Amy and Sonic examined the sailboat they had just stolen. It was fairly small, with wooden seats and bright orange life jackets for five people. On top of the mast, which is a word meaning "the tall wooden post found in the middle of boats," was a grimy white sail controlled by a series of ropes, and on the floor was a pair of wooden oars in case there was no wind. In the back, there was a sort of wooden lever with a handle for moving it this way and that, and under one of the seats was a shiny metal bucket for bailing out any water in case of a leak. There was also a long pole with a fishing net at the end of it, a small fishing rod with a sharp hook and a rusty spying glass, which is a sort of telescope used for navigating. The three siblings struggled into their life vests as the stormy waves of Lake Lachrymose took them farther and farther away from the shore.

"I read a book about working a sailboat," Amy shouted over the noise of the hurricane. "We have to use the sail to catch the wind. Then it will push us where we want to go."

"And this lever is called a tiller," Tails shouted. "I remember it from studying some naval blueprints. The tiller controls the rudder, which is below the water, steering the ship. Sonic, sit in back and work the tiller. Amy, hold the atlas so we can tell where we're going, and I'll try to work the sail. I think if I pull on _this_ rope, I can control the sail."

Amy turned the damp pages of the atlas to page 394. " _That_ way," she called, pointing to the right. "The sun is setting over there, so that must be west."

Sonic scurried to the back of the sailboat and put his tiny hands on the tiller just as a wave hit the boat and sprayed him with foam. "Karg tern!" he called, which meant something along the lines of "I'm going to move the tiller _this_ way, in order to steer the boat according to Amy's recommendation."

The rain whipped around them, and the wind howled, and a small wave splashed over the side, but to the orphans' amazement, the sailboat moved in the exact direction they wanted it to go. If you had come across the three Hedges at this moment, you would have thought their lives were filled with joy and happiness, because even though they were exhausted, damp, and in very great danger, they began to laugh in their triumph. They were so relieved that something had finally gone right that they laughed as if they were at the circus instead of in the middle of a lake, in the middle of a hurricane, in the middle of trouble.

As the storm wore itself out splashing waves over the sailboat and flashing lightning over their heads, the Hedges sailed the tiny boat across the vast and dark lake. Tails pulled ropes this way and that to catch the wind, which kept changing direction as wind tends to do. Amy kept a close eye on the atlas and made sure they weren't heading off course to the Wicked Whirlpool or the Rancorous Rocks. And Sonic kept the boat level by turning the tiller whenever Tails signaled. And just when the evening turned to night, and it was too dark to read the atlas, the Hedges saw a blinking light of pale purple. The orphans had always thought lavender was a rather sickly color, but for the first time in their lives they were glad to see it. It meant that the sailboat was approaching the Lavender Lighthouse, and

soon they'd be at Curdled Cave . The storm finally broke-the word "broke" here means "ended," rather than "shattered" or "lost all its money"-and the clouds parted to reveal an almost-full moon. The children shivered in their soaking clothes and stared out at the calming waves of the lake, watching the swirls of its inky depths.

"Lake Lachrymose is actually very pretty," Amy said thoughtfully. "I never noticed it before."

"Cind," Sonic agreed, adjusting the tiller slightly.

"I guess we never noticed it because of Aunt Sticks," Tails said. "We got used to looking at the lake through her eyes." He picked up the spying glass and squinted into it, and she was just able to see the shore. "I think I can see the lighthouse over there. There's a dark hole in the cliff right next to it. It must be the mouth of Curdled Cave ."

Sure enough, as the sailboat drew closer and closer, the children could just make out the Lavender Lighthouse and the mouth of the nearby cave, but when they looked into its depths, they could see no sign of Aunt Sticks, or of anything else for that matter. Rocks began to scrape the bottom of the boat, which meant they were in very shallow water, and Tails jumped out to drag the sailboat onto the craggy shore. Amy and Sonic stepped out of the boat and took off their life jackets. Then they stood at the mouth of Curdled Cave and paused nervously. In front of the cave there was a sign saying it was for sale, and the orphans could not imagine who would want to buy such a phantasmagorical-the word "phantasmagorical" here means "all the creepy, scary words you can think of put together"-place. The mouth of the cave had jagged rocks all over it like teeth in the mouth of a shark. Just beyond the entrance the youngsters could see strange white rock formations, all melted and twisted together so they looked like moldy milk. The floor of the cave was as pale and dusty as if it were made of chalk. But it was not these sights that made the children pause. It was the sound coming out of the cave. It was a high-pitched, wavering wail, a hopeless and lost sound, as strange and as eerie as Curdled Cave itself.

"What is that sound?" Tails asked nervously.

"Just the wind, probably," Amy replied. "I read somewhere that when wind passes through small spaces, like caves, it can make weird noises. It's nothing to be afraid of."

The orphans did not move. The sound did not stop. "I'm afraid of it, anyway," Tails said.

"Me too," Amy said.

"Geni," Sonic said, and began to crawl into the mouth of the cave. She probably meant something along the lines of "We didn't sail a stolen sailboat across Lake Lachrymose in the middle of Hurricane Herman just to stand nervously at the mouth of a cave," and his siblings had to agree with him and follow him inside. The wailing was louder as it echoed off the walls and rock formations, and the Hedges could tell it wasn't the wind. It was Aunt Sticks, sitting in a corner of the cave and sobbing with her head in her hands. She was crying so hard that she hadn't even noticed the Hedges come into the cave.

"Aunt Sticks," Amy said hesitantly, "we're here."

Aunt Sticks looked up, and the children could see that her face was wet from tears and chalky from the cave. "You figured it out," she said, wiping her eyes and standing up. "I knew you could figure it out," she said, and took each of the Hedges in her arms. She looked at Tails, and then at Amy, and then at Sonic, and the orphans looked at her and found themselves with tears in their own eyes as they greeted their guardian. It was as if they had not quite believed that Aunt Sticks' death was fake until they had seen her alive with their own eyes.

"I knew you were clever children," Aunt Sticks said. "I knew you would read my message."

"Amy really did it," Tails said.

"But Tails knew how to work the sailboat," Amy said. "Without Tails we never would have arrived here."

"And Sonic stole the keys," Tails said, "and worked the tiller."

"Well, I'm glad you all made it here," Aunt Sticks said. "Let me just catch my breath and I'll help you bring in your things."

The children looked at one another. "What things?" Tails asked.

"Why, your luggage of course," Aunt Sticks replied. "And I hope you brought some food, because the supplies I brought are almost gone."

"We didn't bring any food," Amy said.

"No food?" Aunt Sticks said. "How in the world are you going to live with me in this cave if you didn't bring any food?"

"We didn't come here to live with you," Tails said.

Aunt Sticks' hands flew to her head to feel her hair nervously. "Then why are you here?" she asked.

"Stim!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Because we were worried about you!"

"'Stim' is not a sentence, Sonic," Aunt Sticks said sternly. "Perhaps one of your older siblings could explain in correct English why you're here."

"Because Captain Sham almost had us in his clutches!" Tails cried. "Everyone thought you were dead, and you wrote in your will and testament that we should be placed in the care of Captain Sham."

"But he forced me to do that," Aunt Sticks whined. "That night, when he called me on the phone, he told me he was really Count Eggman. He said I had to write out a will saying you

children would be left in his care. He said if I didn't write what he said, he would drown me in the lake. I was so frightened that I agreed immediately."

"Why didn't you call the police?" Tails asked. "Why didn't you call Mr. Silver Poe? Why didn't you call somebody who could have helped?"

"You know why," Aunt Sticks said crossly. "I'm afraid of using the phone. Why, I was just getting used to answering it. I'm nowhere near ready to use the numbered buttons. But in any case, I didn't need to call anybody. I threw a footstool through the window and then sneaked out of the house. I left you the note so that you would know I wasn't really dead, but I hid my message so that Captain Sham wouldn't know I had escaped from him."

"Why didn't you take us with you? Why did you leave us all alone by ourselves? Why didn't you protect us from Captain Sham?" Amy asked.

"It is not grammatically correct," Aunt Sticks said, "to say 'leave us all alone by ourselves.' You can say 'leave us all alone,' or 'leave us by ourselves,' but not both. Do you understand?"

The Hedges looked at one another in sadness and anger. They understood. They understood that Aunt Sticks was more concerned with grammatical mistakes than with saving the lives of the three children. They understood that she was so wrapped up in her own fears that she had not given a thought to what might have happened to them. They understood that Aunt Sticks had been a terrible guardian, in leaving the children all by themselves in great danger. They understood and they wished more than ever that their parents, who never would have run away and left them alone, had not been killed in that terrible fire which had begun all the misfortune in the Hedge lives.

"Well, enough grammar lessons for today," Aunt Sticks said. "I'm happy to see you, and you are welcome to share this cave with me. I don't think Captain Sham will ever find us here."

"We're not _staying here''_ Tails said impatiently."We're sailing back to town, and we're taking you with us."

"No way, Jose," Aunt Sticks said, using an expression which means "No way" and has nothing to do with Jose, whoever he is. "I'm too frightened of Captain Sham to face him. After all he's done to you I would think that you would be frightened of him, too."

"We _are_ frightened of him," Amy said, "but if we prove that he's really Count Eggman he will go to jail. You are the proof. If you tell Mr. Silver Poe what happened, then Count Eggman will be locked away and we will be safe."

"You can tell him, if you want to," Aunt Sticks said. "I'm staying here."

"He won't believe us unless you come with us and prove that you're alive," Tails said. "No, no, no," Aunt Sticks said. "I'm too afraid."

Amy took a deep breath and faced her frightened guardian. "We're _all_ afraid," she said firmly. "We were afraid when we met Captain Sham in the grocery store. We were afraid when we thought that you had jumped out the window. We were afraid to give ourselves allergic reactions, and we were afraid to steal a sailboat and we were afraid to make our way across this lake in the middle of a hurricane. But that didn't stop us."

Aunt Sticks' eyes filled up with tears. "I can't help it that you're braver than I," she said. "I'm not sailing across that lake. I'm not making any phone calls. I'm going to stay right here for the rest of my life, and nothing you can say will change my mind."

Tails stepped forward and played his trump card, a phrase which means "said something very convincing, which he had saved for the end of the argument."

"Curdled Cave," he said, "is for sale."

"So what?" Aunt Sticks said.

"That means," Tails said, "that before long certain people will come to look at it. And some of those people"-he paused here dramatically-"will be realtors."

Aunt Sticks' mouth hung open, and the orphans watched her pale throat swallow in fear. "Okay," she said finally, looking around the cave anxiously as if a realtor were already hiding in the shadows. "I'll go."

Chapter 11

"Oh no" Aunt Sticks said

The children paid no attention. The worst of Hurricane Herman was over and as the Hedges sailded across the dark lake there seemed to be very little danger. Tails moved the sail with ease as the wind was calm. Amy looked back at the lavender lighthouse and confidently guided the way back to Damocles Dock. And Sonic moved the tiller as if he was a tiller mover all his life. Only Aunt Sticks was scared she was wearing two life jackets instead of one, and every few seconds she cried "Oh no," even though nothing frightening was happening.

"Oh no," Aunt Sticks said, "and I mean it this time."

"What's wrong, Aunt Sticks?" Tails said tiredly. The sailboat had reached the approximate middle of the lake. The water was still fairly calm, and the lighthouse still glowed, a pinpoint of pale purple light. There seemed to be no cause for alarm.

"We're about to enter the territory of the Lachrymose Leeches," Aunt Sticks said.

"I'm sure we'll pass through safely," Amy said, peering through the spying glass to see if Damocles Dock was visible yet. "You told us that the leeches were harmless and only preyed on small fish."

"Unless you've eaten recently," Aunt Sticks said.

"But it's been hours since we've eaten," Tails said soothingly. "The last thing we ate were peppermints at the Anxious Clown. That was in the afternoon, and now it's the middle of the night."

Aunt Sticks looked down, and moved away from the side of the boat. "But I ate a banana," she whispered, "just before you arrived. That is what I wanted to tell you"

"Oh no," Tails said. Sonic stopped moving the tiller and looked worriedly into the water.

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Amy said. "Leeches are very small animals. If we were in the water, we might have reason to fear, but I don't think they'd attack a sailboat. Plus, Hurricane Herman may have frightened them away from their territory. I bet the Lachrymose Leeches won't even show up."

Amy thought she was done speaking for the moment, but in the moment that followed she added one more sentence. The sentence was "Speak of the Devil," and it is an expression that you use when you are talking about something only to have it occur. For instance, if you were at a picnic and said, "I hope it doesn't snow," and at that very minute a blizzard began, you could say, "Speak of the Devil" before gathering up your blanket and potato salad and driving away to a good restaurant. But in the case of the Hedge orphans, I'm sure you can guess what happened to prompt Amy to use this expression.

"Speak of the Devil," Amy said, looking into the waters of the lake. Out of the swirling blackness came skinny, rising shapes, barely visible in the moonlight. The shapes were scarcely longer than a finger, and at first it looked as if someone were swimming in the lake and drumming their fingers on the surface of the water. But most people have only ten fingers, and in the few minutes that followed there were hundreds of these tiny shapes, wriggling hungrily from all sides toward the sailboat. The Lachrymose Leeches made a quiet, whispering sound on the water as they swam, as if the Hedge orphans were surrounded by people murmuring terrible secrets. The children watched in silence as the swarm approached the boat, each leech knocking lightly against the wood. Their tiny leech-mouths puckered in disappointment as they tried to taste the sailboat. Leeches are blind, but they aren't stupid, and the Lachrymose Leeches knew that they were not eating a banana.

"You see?" Amy said nervously, as the tapping of leech-mouths continued. "We're perfectly safe."

"Yes," Tails said. He wasn't sure they were perfectly safe, not at all, but it seemed best to tell Aunt Sticks they were perfectly safe. "We're perfectly safe," he said.

The tapping sound continued, getting a little rougher and louder. Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated. Frustrated babies tend to throw food and make a mess. Frustrated citizens tend to execute kings and queens and make a democracy. And frustrated moths tend to bang up against lightbulbs and make light fixtures all dusty. But unlike babies, citizens, and moths, leeches are quite unpleasant to begin with. Now that the Lachrymose Leeches were getting frustrated, everyone on board the sailboat was quite anxious to see what would happen when frustration brought out the worst in leeches. For a while, the small creatures tried and tried to eat the wood, but their tiny teeth didn't really do anything but make an unpleasant knocking sound. But then, all at once, the leeches knocked off, and the Hedges watched them wriggle away from the sailboat.

"They're leaving," Amy said hopefully, but they weren't leaving. When the leeches had reached a considerable distance, they suddenly swiveled their tiny bodies around and came rushing back to the boat. With a loud _thwack!_ the leeches all hit the boat more or less at once, and the sailboat rocked precariously, a word which here means "in a way which almost threw Aunt Sticks and the Hedge youngsters to their doom." The four passengers were rocked to and fro and almost fell into the waters of the lake, where the leeches were wriggling away again to prepare for another attack.

"Yadec!" Sonic shrieked and pointed at the side of the boat. Yadec, of course, is not grammatically correct English, but even Aunt Sticks understood that the youngest Hedge meant "Look at the crack in the boat that the leeches have made!" The crack was a tiny one, about as long as a pencil and about as wide as a human hair, and it was curved downward so it looked as if the sailboat were frowning at them. If the leeches kept hitting the side of the boat, the frown would only get wider.

"We have to sail much faster," Amy said, "or this boat will be in pieces in no time." "But sailing relies on the wind," Tails pointed out. "We can't make the wind go faster." "I'm frightened!" Aunt Sticks cried. "Please don't throw me overboard!"

"Nobody's going to throw you overboard," Tails said impatiently, although I'm sorry to tell you that Tails was wrong about that. "Take an oar, Aunt Sticks. Amy, take the other one. If we use the sail, the tiller, _and_ the oars we should move more quickly."

 _Thwack!_ The Lachrymose Leeches hit the side of the boat, widening the crack in the side and rocking the boat again. One of the leeches was thrown over the side in the impact, and twisted this way and that on the floor of the boat, gnashing its tiny teeth as it looked for food. Grimacing, Amy walked cautiously over to it and tried to kick the leech overboard, but it clung onto her shoe and began gnawing through the leather. With a cry of disgust, Amy shook her leg, and the leech fell to the floor of the sailboat again, stretching its tiny neck and opening and shutting its mouth. Tails grabbed the long pole with the net at the end of it, scooped up the leech, and tossed it overboard.

 _Thwack!_ The crack widened enough that a bit of water began to dribble through, making a small puddle on the sailboat's floor. "Sonic," Tails said, "keep an eye on that puddle. When it gets bigger, use the bucket to throw it back in the lake."

"Mofee!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "I certainly will." There was the whispering sound as the leeches swam away to ram the boat again. Amy and Aunt Sticks began rowing as hard as they could, while Tails adjusted the sail and kept the net in her hand for any more leeches who got on board.

 _Thwack! Thwack!_ There were two loud noises now, one on the side of the boat and one on the bottom, which cracked immediately. The leeches had divided up into two teams, which is good news for playing kickball but bad news if you are being attacked. Aunt Sticks gave a shriek of terror. Water was now leaking into the sailboat in two spots, and Sonic abandoned the tiller to bail the water back out. Amy stopped rowing, and held the oar up without a word. It had several small bite marks in it-the work of the Lachrymose Leeches.

"Rowing isn't going to work," she reported to Tails solemnly. "If we row any more these oars will be completely eaten."

Tails watched Sonic crawl around with the bucket full of water. "Rowing won't help us, anyway," he said. "This boat is sinking. We need help."

Amy looked around at the dark and still waters, empty except for the sailboat and swarms of leeches. "Where can we get help in the middle of a lake?" she asked.

"We're going to have to signal for help," Tails said, and reached into his pocket and took out a ribbon. Handing Amy the fishing net, he used the ribbon to tie his bangs up, keeping it out of his eyes. Amy and Sonic watched him, knowing that he only tied his bangs up this way when he was thinking of an invention, and right now they needed an invention quite desperately.

"That's right," Aunt Sticks said to Tails, "close your eyes. That's what I do when I'm afraid, and it always makes me feel better to block out the fear. But I feel that using a ribbon are meant for girls "

"He's not blocking out anything," Amy said crossly. "He's concentrating."

Amy was right. Tails concentrated as hard as he could, racking his brain for a good way to signal for help. He thought of fire alarms. With flashing lights and loud sirens, fire alarms were an excellent way to signal for assistance. Although the Hedge orphans, of course, sadly knew that sometimes the fire engines arrived too late to save people's lives, a fire alarm was still a good invention, and Tails tried to think of a way he could imitate it using the materials around him. He needed to make a loud sound, to get somebody's attention. And he needed to make a bright light, so that person would know where they were.

 _Thwack! Thwack!_ The two teams of leeches hit the boat again, and there was a splash as more water came pouring into the sailboat. Sonic started to fill the bucket with water, but Tails reached forward and took it from Sonic's hands. "Bero?" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Are you crazy?" but Tails had no time to answer "No, as a matter of fact I'm not." So he merely said "No," and, holding the bucket one hand, began to fly up the mast, while holding onto the mast for assistance to stay up. It is

difficult enough to climb up the mast of a boat, but it is triple the difficulty if the boat is being rocked by a bunch of hungry leeches, but a little less if you can fly. So allow me to advise you that this is another thing that you should under no circumstances try to do. But Miles Tails Prower Hedge was a wunderkind, a German word which here means "someone who is able to quickly climb masts on boats being attacked by leeches, while flying up that mast," and soon he was on the top of the swaying mast of the boat. He took the bucket and hung it by its handle on the tip of the mast so it swung this way and that, the way a bell might do in a bell tower.

"I don't mean to interrupt you," Amy called, scooping up a furious leech in the net and tossing it as far as she could, "but this boat is really sinking. Please hurry, you have little time to fly down."

Tails hurried. Hurriedly, he grabbed ahold of a corner of the sail and, taking a deep breath to prepare himself, jumped back down to the floor of the boat. Just as he had hoped, the sail ripped as he hurtled to the ground, slowing him down and leaving him with a large piece of torn cloth. By now the sailboat had quite a lot of water in it, and Tails splashed over to Aunt Sticks, avoiding the many leeches that Amy was tossing out of the boat as quickly as he could.

"I need your oar," Tails said, wadding the piece of sail up into a ball, "and your hairnet." "You can have the oar," Aunt Sticks said, handing it over. "But I need my hairnet. It

keeps my hair in place."

"Give him the hairnet!" Tails cried, hopping up on one of the seats as a leech tried to bite her knee.

"But I'm scared of having hair in my face," Aunt Sticks whined, just as another pair of

 _thwack!_ s hit the boat.

"I don't have time to argue with you!" Tails cried. "I'm trying to save each of our lives!

Give me your hairnet right now!"

"The expression," Aunt Sticks said, "is saving _all of our lives,_ not _each of our lives"_ but Tails had heard enough. Splashing forward and avoiding a pair of wriggling leeches, the eldest Hedge reached forward and grabbed Aunt Sticks' hairnet off of her head. He wrapped the crumpled part of the sail in the hairnet, and then grabbed the fishing pole and attached the messy ball of cloth to the fishhook. It looked like he was about to go fishing for some kind of fish that liked sailboats and hair accessories for food.

 _Thwack! Thwack!_ The sailboat tilted to one side and then to the other. The leeches had almost smashed their way through the side. Tails took the oar and began to rub it up and down the side of the boat as fast and as hard as she could.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked, catching three leeches in one swoop of her net.

"I'm trying to create friction," Tails said. "If I rub two pieces of wood enough, I'll create friction. Friction creates sparks. When I get a spark, I'll set the cloth and hairnet on fire and use it as a signal."

"You want to set a fire?" Amy cried. "But a fire will mean more danger."

"Not if I wave the fire over my head, using the fishing pole," Tails said. "I'll do that, and hit the bucket like a bell, and that should create enough of a signal to fetch us some help." He rubbed and rubbed the oar against the side of the boat, but no sparks appeared. The sad truth was that the wood was too wet from Hurricane Herman and from Lake Lachrymose to create enough friction to start a fire. It was a good idea, but Tails realized, as he rubbed and rubbed without any result, that it was the wrong idea.

 _Thwack! Thwack!_ Tails looked around at Aunt Sticks and his terrified siblings and felt hope leak out of his heart as quickly as water was leaking into the boat. "It's not working," Tails said miserably, and felt tears fall down his cheeks. He thought of the promise he made to his parents, shortly before they were killed, that he would always take care of his younger siblings. The leeches swarmed around the sinking boat, and Tails feared that he had not lived up to his promise. "It's not working," he said again, and dropped the oar in despair. "We need a fire, but I can't invent one."

"It's okay," Amy said, even though of course it was not. "We'll think of something." "Tintet," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "Don't cry. You tried your

best," but Tails cried anyway. It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your

best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety. The boat rocked back and forth, and water poured through the cracks, and Tails cried because it looked like they would never get to safety. His shoulders shaking with sobs, he held the spying glass up to his eye to see if, by any chance, there was a boat nearby, or if the tide had happened to carry the sailboat to shore, but all he could see was the moonlight reflecting on the rippling waters of the lake. And this was a lucky thing. Because as soon as Tails saw the flickering reflection, he remembered the scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light.

The scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can't make head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me. But they made perfect sense to Tails. Instantly, he thought of a story his father had told him, long ago, when he was just beginning to be interested in science. When his father was a boy, he'd had a dreadful cousin who liked to burn ants, starting a fire by focusing the light of the sun with her magnifying glass. Burning ants, of course, is an abhorrent hobby- the word "abhorrent" here means "what Count Eggman used to do when he was about your age"- but remembering the story made Tails see that she could use the lens of the spying glass to focus the light of the moon and make a fire. Without wasting another moment, he grabbed the spying glass and removed the lens, and then, looking up at the moon, tilted the lens at an angle he hastily computed in his head.

The moonlight passed through the lens and was concentrated into a long, thin band of light, like a glowing thread leading right to the piece of sail, held in a ball by Aunt Sticks' hairnet. In a moment the thread had become a small flame.

"It's miraculous!" Amy cried, as the flame took hold. "It's unbelievable!" Aunt Sticks cried.

"Fonti!" Sonic shrieked.

"It's the scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light!" Tails cried, wiping her eyes. Stepping carefully to avoid onboard leeches and so as not to put out the fire, he moved to the front of the boat. With one hand, he took the oar and rang the bucket, making a loud sound to get somebody's attention. With the other hand, he held the fishing rod up high, making a bright light so the person would know where they were. Tails looked up at his homemade signaling device that had finally caught fire, all because of a silly story his father had told him. His father's ant-burning cousin sounded like a dreadful person, but if she had suddenly appeared on the sailboat Tails would have given her a big grateful hug.

As it turned out, however, this signal was a mixed blessing, a phrase which means "something half good and half bad." Somebody saw the signal almost immediately, somebody who was already sailing in the lake, and who headed toward the Hedges in an instant. Tails, Amy, Sonic, and even Aunt Sticks all grinned as they saw another boat sail into view. They were being rescued, and that was the good half. But their smiles began to fade as the boat drew closer and they saw who was sailing it. Aunt Sticks and the orphans saw the wooden peg leg, and the navy-blue sailor cap, and the eye patch, and they knew who was coming to their aid. It was Captain Sham, of course, and he was probably the worst half in the world.

Chapter 12

"Welcome aboard" Captain Sham said, with a wiked grin that showed all his filthy teeth. "I'm happy to see you all. I thought you had been killed when the old lady's house fell off the hill, but luckily my associate told me you stolen a boat and run away. And you Sticks – I thought you'd done the sencable thing and jumped out of the window"

"I tried to do the sensible thing ," Aunt Sticks said sourly. "But these children came and got me."

Captain Sham smiled. He had expertly steered his sailboat so it was alongside the one the Hedge had stolen, and Aunt Sticks and the children had stepped over the swarming leeches to come aboard. With a gurgly _whoosh!_ their own sailboat was overwhelmed with water and quickly sank into the depths of the lake. The Lachrymose Leeches swarmed around the sinking sailboat, gnashing their tiny teeth. "Aren't you going to say thank you, orphans?" Captain Sham asked, pointing to the swirling place in the lake where their sailboat had been. "If it weren't for me, all of you would be divided up into the stomachs of those leeches."

"If it weren't for you," Tails said fiercely, "we wouldn't be in Lake Lachrymose to begin with."

"You can blame _that_ on the old woman," he said, pointing to Aunt Sticks. "Faking your own death was pretty clever, but not clever enough. The Hedge fortune-and, unfortunately, the brats who come with it-now belong to me."

"Don't be ridiculous," Amy said. "We don't belong to you and we never will. Once we tell Mr. Silver Poe what happened he will send you to jail."

"Is that so?" Captain Sham said, turning the sailboat around and sailing toward Damocles Dock. His one visible eye was shining brightly as if he were telling a joke. "Mr. Silver Poe will send me to jail, eh? Why, Mr. Silver Poe is putting finishing touches on your adoption papers this very moment. In a few hours, you orphans will be Tails, Amy and Sonic Sham."

"Neihab!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "I'm Sonic Hedge, and I will always be Sonic Hedge unless I decide for myself to legally change my name!"

"When we explain that you forced Aunt Sticks to write that note," Tails said, "Mr.

Silver Poe will rip up those adoption papers into a thousand pieces."

"Mr. Silver Poe won't believe you," Captain Sham said, chuckling. "Why should he believe three runaway pipsqueaks who go around stealing boats?"

"Because we're telling the truth!" Amy cried.

"Truth, schmuth," Captain Sham said. If you don't care about something, one way to demonstrate your feelings is to say the word and then repeat the word with the letters S-C-H- M replacing the real first letters. Somebody who didn't care about dentists, for instance, could say "Dentists, schmentists." But only a despicable person like Captain Sham wouldn't care about the truth. "Truth, schmuth," he said again. "I think Mr. Silver Poe is more likely to believe the owner of a respectable sailboat rental place, who went out in the middle of a hurricane to rescue three ungrateful boat thieves."

"We only stole the boat," Tails said, "to retrieve Aunt Sticks from her hiding place so she could tell everyone about your terrible plan."

"But nobody will believe the old woman, either," Captain Sham said impatiently. "Nobody believes a dead woman."

"Are you blind in _both_ eyes?" Amy asked. "Aunt Sticks isn't dead!"

Captain Sham smiled again, and looked out at the lake. Just a few yards away the water was rippling as the Lachrymose Leeches swam toward Captain Sham's sailboat. After searching every inch of the Hedges' boat and failing to find any food, the leeches had realized they had been tricked and were once again following the scent of banana still lingering on Aunt Sticks.

"She's not dead _yet"_ Captain Sham said, in a terrible voice, and took a step toward her.# "Oh no," she said. Her eyes were wide with fear. "Don't throw me overboard," she

pleaded. _"Please!"_

"You're not going to reveal my plan to Mr. Silver Poe," Captain Sham said, taking another step toward the terrified woman, "because you will be joining your beloved Ike at the bottom of the lake."

"No she won't," Tails said, grabbing a rope. "I will steer us to shore before you can do anything about it."

"I'll help," Amy said, running to the back and grabbing the tiller.

"Igal!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "And I'll guard Aunt Sticks." He crawled in front of the Hedge guardian and bared his teeth at Captain Sham.

"You were going to betray me?" Count Eggman said to Aunt Sticks. "After all the years we spent together, after all those picnics by the shore? After all that food I served to your husband? After all the secrets we had shared?"

But then Aunt sticks did something shocking, she pushed Sonic aside, she seemed to have changed when she got on and faced Captain Sham face to face. All of the Hedges were too shocked to speak.

"YES! I was going to betray you, and these three children gave me the courage to do so. Ever since their parents have died they had been so fierce and formidable! Again and Again escaping from you! What have I done in all these years? Nothing but hide in my house! Well I had enough of that! My house can fall of the cliff if all I care! I am ready to be fierce and formidable again myself and face you again Count Eggman! I had enough of your schemes! I had enough of your plots! I had enough of your greed and betrayal! Listen to me Eggman! you villain, you wretch, you bad actor! There is something I should have told you a LONG time AGO!"

"And that would be?" Captain Sham said, who was just as shocked as the Hedges.

"Its HAVE!"

"What?" Captain Sham said, puzzled

"You said _'All the secrets we had shared'_ whioe you should have said _'All the secrets we HAVE shared'_ You made a massive mistake in grammer!"

Captain Sham's one shiny eye blinked, and his mouth curled up in a terrible smile. "Thank you for pointing that out," he said, and took one last step toward Aunt Sticks. Sonic growled at him, and he looked down and in one swift gesture moved his peg leg and knocked Sonic to the other end of his boat. "Let me make sure I completely understand the grammatical lesson," he said to the Hedges' confidant guardian, as if nothing had happened. "You wouldn't say ' Sticks Anwhistle _had_ been thrown overboard to the leeches,' because that would be incorrect. But if you said ' Sticks Anwhistle _has_ been thrown overboard to the leeches,' that would be all right with you."

"Yes," Aunt Sticks said. "I mean _no._ I mean-"

But Aunt Sticks never got to say what she meant. Captain Sham faced her and, using both hands, pushed her over the side of the boat. With a little gasp and a big splash she fell into the waters of Lake Lachrymose .

 _"Aunt Sticks!"_ Tails cried. _"Aunt Sticks!"_

Amy leaned over the side of the boat and stretched her hand out as far as she could. Thanks to her two life jackets, Aunt Sticks was floating on top of the water, waving her hands in the air as the leeches swam toward her. But Captain Sham was already pulling at the ropes of the sail, and Amy couldn't reach her. "You _fiend!"_ she shouted at Captain Sham. "You evil fiend!"

"That's no way to talk to your father," Captain Sham said calmly.

There was a horrable scream from Aunt Sticks, then she vannished

Tails tried to tug a rope out of Captain Sham's hand. "Move the sailboat back!" he shouted. "Turn the boat around!"

"Not a chance," he replied smoothly. "Wave good-bye to the old woman, orphans. You'll never see her again."

The three orphans huddled together, shivering in cold and fear, as Captain Sham sailed the boat by himself. They didn't dare do anything but hope. Their feelings for Aunt Sticks were all a tumble in their minds. The Hedges had not really enjoyed most of their time with her not because she cooked horrible cold meals, or chose presents for them that they didn't like, or always corrected the children's grammar, but because she was so afraid of everything that she made it impossible to really enjoy anything at all. And the worst of it was,

Aunt Sticks' fear had made her a bad guardian. A guardian is supposed to stay with children and keep them safe, but Aunt Sticks had run away at the first sign of danger and even though she finally did stand up to them it came with a heavy price. A guardian is supposed to help children in times of trouble, but Aunt Sticks practically had to be dragged out of the Curdled Cave when they needed her.

But despite all of Aunt Sticks' faults, the orphans still cared about her. She had taught them many things, even if most of them were boring. She had provided a home, even if it was cold and unable to withstand hurricanes. And the children knew that Aunt Sticks, like the Hedges themselves, had experienced some terrible things in her life. So as their guardian faded from view and the lights of Damocles Dock approached closer and closer, Tails, Amy and Sonic did not think " Sticks, smiks." They thought "We hope Aunt Sticks is safe." Even though they had heard her scream, they still thought that she had escaped somehow

Captain Sham sailed the boat right up to the shore and tied it expertly to the dock. "Come along, little idiots," he said, and led the Hedges to the tall metal gate with the glistening spikes on top, where Mr. Silver Poe was waiting with his handkerchief in his hand and a look of relief on his face. Next to Mr. Silver Poe was the Brobdingnagian creature, who gazed at them with a triumphant expression on his or her face.

"You're safe!" Mr. Silver Poe said. "Thank goodness! We were so worried about you! When Captain Sham and I reached the Anwhistle home and saw that it had fallen into the sea, we thought you were done for!"

"It is lucky my associate told me that they had stolen a sailboat," Captain Sham told Mr. Silver Poe. "The boat was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Herman, and by a swarm of leeches. I rescued them just in time."

"He did not!" Tails shouted. "He threw Aunt Sticks into the lake! We have to go and rescue her!"

"The children are upset and confused," Captain Sham said, his eye shining. "As their father, I think they need a good night's sleep."

"He's not our father!" Amy shouted. "He's Count Eggman, and he's a murderer! Please, Mr. Silver Poe, alert the police! We have to save Aunt Sticks!"

"Oh, dear," Mr. Silver Poe said, coughing into his handkerchief. "You certainly _are_ confused, Amy. Aunt Sticks is dead, remember? She threw herself out the window."

"No, no," Tails said. "Her suicide note had a secret message in it. Amy decoded the note and it said 'Curdled Cave .' Actually, it said 'apostrophe Curdled Cave ,' but the apostrophe was just to get our attention."

"You're not making any sense," Mr. Silver Poe said. "What cave? What apostrophe?" "Amy," Tails said, "show Mr. Silver Poe the note."

"You can show it to him in the morning," Captain Sham said, in a falsely soothing tone. "You need a good night's sleep. My associate will take you to my apartment while I stay here and finish the adoption paperwork with Mr. Silver Poe."

"But-" Amy said.

"But nothing," Captain Sham said. "You're very distraught, which means 'upset.'" "I _know_ what it means," Amy said.

 _"Please_ listen to us," Tails begged Mr. Silver Poe. "It's a matter of life or death. _Please_ just take a look at the note."

"You can show it to him," Captain Sham said, his voice rising in anger, _"in the morning._

Now please follow my associate to my minivan and go straight to bed."

"Hold on a minute, Captain Sham," Mr. Silver Poe said. "If it upsets the children so much, I'll take a look at the note. It will only take a moment."

"Thank you," Amy said in relief, and reached into her pocket for the note. But as soon as she reached inside her face fell in disappointment, and I'm sure you can guess why. If you place a piece of paper in your pocket, and then soak yourself in a hurricane, the piece of paper, no matter how important it is, will turn into a soggy mess. Amy pulled a damp lump out of her pocket, and the orphans looked at the remains of Aunt Sticks' note. You could scarcely tell that it had been a piece of paper, let alone read the note or the secret it contained.

"This _was_ the note," Amy said, holding it out to Mr. Silver Poe. "You'll just have to take our word for it that Aunt Sticks was still alive."

"And she might _still_ be alive!" Tails cried. _"Please,_ Mr. Silver Poe, send someone to rescue her!"

"Oh my, children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "You're so sad and worried. But you don't have to worry anymore. I have always promised to provide for you, and I think Captain Sham will do an excellent job of raising you. He has a steady business and doesn't seem likely to throw himself out of a window. And it's obvious he cares for you very much-why, he went out alone, in the middle of a hurricane, to search for you."

"The only thing he cares about," Amy said bitterly, "is our fortune."

"Why, that's not true," Captain Sham said. "I don't want a penny of your fortune. Except, of course, to pay for the sailboat you stole and wrecked."

Mr. Silver Poe frowned, and coughed into his handkerchief. "Well, that's a surprising request," he said, "but I suppose that can be arranged. Now, children, please go to your new home while I make the final arrangements with Captain Sham. Perhaps we'll have time for breakfast tomorrow before I head back to the city."

 _"Please,_ " Tails cried. _"Please,_ won't you listen to us?"

 _"Please"_ Amy cried. _"Please,_ won't you believe us?"

Sonic did not say anything. Sonic had not said anything for a long time, and if his siblings hadn't been so busy trying to reason with Mr. Silver Poe, they would have noticed that he wasn't even looking up to watch everyone talking. During this whole conversation, Sonic was looking straight ahead, and if you are a baby this means looking at people's legs. The leg she was looking at was Captain Sham's. He wasn't looking at his right leg, which was perfectly normal, but at his peg leg. He was looking at the stump of dark polished wood, attached to his left knee with a curved metal hinge, and concentrating very hard.

It may surprise you to learn that at this moment, Sonic resembled the famous Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great lived more than two thousand years ago, and his last name was not actually "The Great." "The Great" was something that he forced people to call him, by bringing a bunch of soldiers into their land and proclaiming himself king. Besides invading other people's countries and forcing them to do whatever he said, Alexander the Great was famous for something called the Gordian Knot. The Gordian Knot was a fancy knot tied in a piece of rope by a king named Gordius. Gordius said that if Alexander could untie it, he could rule the whole kingdom. But Alexander, who was too busy conquering places to learn how to untie knots, simply drew his sword and cut the Gordian Knot in two. This was cheating, of course, but Alexander had too many soldiers for Gordius to argue, and soon everybody in Gordium had to bow down to You-Know-Who the Great. Ever since then, a difficult problem can be called a Gordian Knot, and if you solve the problem in a simple way- even if the way is rude-you are cutting the Gordian Knot.

The problem the Hedge orphans were experiencing could certainly be called a Gordian Knot, because it looked impossible to solve. The problem, of course, was that Captain Sham's despicable plan was about to succeed, and the way to solve it was to convince Mr. Silver Poe of what was really going on. But with Aunt Sticks thrown in the lake, and her note a ruined lump of wet paper, Tails and Amy were unable to convince Mr. Silver Poe of anything. Sonic, however, stared at Captain Sham's peg leg and thought of a simple, if rude, way of solving the problem. As all the taller people argued and paid no attention to Sonic, the littlest Hedge crawled as close as he could to the peg leg, opened his mouth and bit down as hard as he could. Luckily for the Hedges, Sonic's teeth were as sharp as the sword of Alexander the Great, and Captain Sham's peg leg split right in half with a _crack!_ that made everybody look down.

As I'm sure you've guessed, the peg leg was fake, and it split open to reveal Captain Sham's real leg, pale and sweaty from knee to toes. But it was neither the knee nor the toes that interested everyone. It was the ankle. For there on the pale and sweaty skin of Captain Sham was the solution to their problem. By biting the peg leg, Sonic had cut the Gordian Knot, for as the wooden pieces of fake peg leg fell to the floor of Damocles Dock, everyone could see a tattoo of an eye.

Chapter 13

The phrase, 'you fool me once, shame on you, but you fool me twice shame on me' is a term used to make people learn, like for instance if a frind offered you a candy that had hot sause in it, and you took it, it would teach you never to take a sweet from him again, but if you did take another sweet from him, and it did have hot sauce, it would make you look like a fool, and it would be a perfect phrase to describe Mr. Silver Poe. First he didn't belive that Stephano was Count Eggman in disguise, and now Captain Sham was now revealed to be Count Eggman once again. of his one shiny eye, he twisted his face to make it look as astonished as Mr. Poe' . Silver Poe looked astonished. Tails looked relived. Amy looked assuaged, which is a fancy word for 'relived' that she had learnt in a magazine articale. Sonic looked triumphant. The person who neither looks like a man nor a woman looked disappointed. And Count Eggman- it is such a relief to call him by his real name- at first looked afraid but in a blink

"My leg!" Count Eggman cried, in a voice of false joy. "My leg has grown back! It's amazing! It's wonderful! It's a medical miracle!"

"Oh come now," Mr. Silver Poe said, folding his arms. "That won't work. Even a child can see that your peg leg was false."

"A child _did_ see it," Tails whispered to Amy. _"Three_ children, in fact."

"Well, maybe the peg leg was false," Count Eggman admitted, and took a step backward. "But I've never seen this tattoo in my life."

"Oh come now," Mr. Silver Poe said again. "That won't work, either. You tried to hide the tattoo with the peg leg, but now we can see that you are really Count Eggman."

"Well, maybe the tattoo is mine," Count Eggman admitted, and took another step backward. "But I'm not this Count Eggman person. I'm Captain Sham. See, I have a business card here that says so."

"Oh come now," Mr. Silver Poe said yet again. "That won't work. Anyone can go to a print shop and have cards made that say anything they like."

"Well, maybe I'm not Captain Sham," Count Eggman admitted, "but the children still belong to me. Sticks said that they did."

"Oh come now," Mr. Silver Poe said for the fourth and final time. "That won't work. Aunt Sticks left the children to Captain Sham, not to Count Eggman. And you are Count Eggman, not Captain Sham. So it is once again up to me to decide who will care for the Hedges. I will send these three youngsters somewhere else, and I will send you to jail. You have performed your evil deeds for the last time, Eggman. You tried to steal the Hedge fortune by marrying Amy. You tried to steal the Hedge fortune by murdering Uncle Knuckles."

"And this," Count Eggman growled, "was my greatest plan yet." He reached up and tore off his eyepatch-which was fake, of course, like his peg leg-and stared at the Hedges with both of his shiny eyes. "I don't like to brag- actually, why should I lie to you fools anymore?-I _love_ to brag, and forcing that stupid old woman to write that note was really something to brag about. What a ninny Sticks was!"

"She was not a ninny!" Amy cried. "She was kind and sweet!"

 _"Sweet?"_ Count Eggman repeated, with a horrible smile. "Well, at this very moment the Lachrymose Leeches are probably finding her very sweet indeed. She might be the sweetest breakfast they ever ate."

Mr. Silver Poe frowned, and coughed into his white handkerchief. "That's enough of your revolting talk, Eggman," he said sternly. "We've caught you now, and there's no way you'll be getting away. The Lake Lachrymose Police Department will be happy to capture a known criminal wanted for fraud, murder, and the endangerment of children."

"And arson," Count Eggman piped up.

 _"I said that's enough"_ Mr. Silver Poe growled. Count Eggman, the Hedge orphans, and even the massive creature looked surprised that Mr. Silver Poe had spoken so sternly. "You have preyed upon these children for the last time, and I am making absolutely sure that you are handed over to the proper authorities. Disguising yourself won't work. Telling lies won't work. In fact there's nothing at all you can do about your situation."

"Really?" Count Eggman said, and his filthy lips curved up in a smile. "I can think of something that I can do."

"And what," said Mr. Silver Poe, "is that?"

Count Eggman looked at each one of the Hedge orphans, giving each one a smile as if the children were tiny chocolates he was saving to eat for later. Then he smiled at the massive creature, and then, slowly, he smiled at Mr. Silver Poe. "I can run," he said, and ran. Count Eggman ran, with the massive creature lumbering behind him, in the direction of the heavy metal gate.

"Get back here!" Mr. Silver Poe shouted. "Get back here in the name of the law! Get back here in the name of justice and righteousness! Get back here in the name of Mulctuary Money Management!"

"We can't just shout at them!" Tails shouted. "Come on! We have to chase them!"

"I'm not going to allow children to chase after a man like that," Mr. Silver Poe said, and called out again, "Stop, I say! Stop right there!"

"We can't let them escape!" Amy cried. "Come on, Tails! Come on, Sonic!"

"No, no, this is no job for children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Wait here with your brothers, Amy. I'll retrieve them. They won't get away from Mr. Silver Poe. _You, there! Stop!"_

"But we can't wait here!" Tails cried. "We have to get into a sailboat and look for Aunt Sticks! She may still be alive!"

"You Hedge children are under my care," Mr. Silver Poe said firmly. "I'm not going to let small children sail around unaccompanied."

"But if we hadn't sailed unaccompanied," Amy pointed out, "we'd be in Count Eggman's clutches by now!"

"That's not the point," Mr. Silver Poe said, and began to walk quickly toward Count Eggman and the creature. "The point is-"

But the children didn't hear the point over the loud _slam!_ of the tall metal gate. The creature had slammed it shut just as Mr. Silver Poe had reached it.

"Stop immediately!" Mr. Silver Poe ordered, calling through the gate. "Come back here, you unpleasant person!" He tried to open the tall gate and found it locked. "It's locked!" he cried to the children. "Where is the key? We must find the key!"

The Hedges rushed to the gate but stopped as they heard a jingling sound. "I have the key," said Count Eggman's voice, from the other side of the gate. "But don't worry. I'll see you soon, orphans. _Very soon."_

"Open this gate immediately!" Mr. Silver Poe shouted, but of course nobody opened the gate. He shook it and shook it, but the spiky metal gate never opened. Mr. Silver Poe hurried to a phone booth and called the police, but the children knew that by the time help arrived Count Eggman would be long gone. Utterly exhausted and more than utterly miserable, the Hedges orphans sank to the ground, sitting glumly in the very same spot where we found them at the beginning of this story.

In the first chapter, you will remember, the Hedges were sitting on their suitcases, hoping that their lives were about to get a little bit better, and I wish I could tell you, here at the end of the story, that it was so. I wish I could write that Count Eggman was captured as he tried to flee, or that Aunt Sticks came swimming up to Damocles Dock, having miraculously escaped from the Lachrymose Leeches. But it was not so. As the children sat on the damp ground, Count Eggman was already halfway across the lake and would soon be on board a train, disguised as a rabbi to fool the police, and I'm sorry to tell you that he was already concocting another scheme to steal the Hedge fortune. And we can never know exactly what was happening to Aunt Sticks as the children sat on the dock, unable to help her, but I will say that eventually-about the time when the Hedge orphans were forced to attend a miserable boarding school, two fishermen found both of Aunt Sticks's life jackets, all in tatters and floating alone in the murky waters of Lake Lachrymose.

In most stories, as you know, the villain would be defeated, there would be a happy ending, and everybody would go home knowing the moral of the story. But in the case of the Hedges everything was wrong. Count Eggman, the villain, had not succeeded with his evil plan, but he certainly hadn't been defeated, either. You certainly couldn't say that there was a happy ending. And the Hedges could not go home knowing the moral of the story, for the simple reason that they could not go home at all. Not only had Aunt Sticks' house fallen into the lake, but the Hedges' real home-the house where they had lived with their parents-was just a pile of ashes in a vacant lot, and they couldn't go back there no matter how much they wanted to.

But even if they could go home it would be difficult for me to tell you what the moral of the story is. In some stories, it's easy. The moral of "The Three Bears," for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house." The moral of "Snow White" is "Never eat apples." The moral of World War One is "Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand." But Tails, Amy and Sonic sat on the dock and watched the sun come up over Lake Lachrymose and wondered exactly what the moral was of their time with Aunt Sticks. The expression "It dawned on them," which I am about to use, does not have anything to do with the sunlight spreading out over Damocles Dock. "It dawned on them" simply means "They figured something out," and as the Hedges orphans sat and watched the dock fill with people as the business of the day began, they figured out something that was very important to them. It dawned on them that unlike Aunt Sticks, who had lived up in that house, sad and alone, the three children had one another for comfort and support over the course of their miserable lives. And while this did not make them feel entirely safe, or entirely happy, it made them feel appreciative.

"Thank you, Amy," Tails said appreciatively, "for figuring out that note. And thank you, Sonic, for stealing the keys to the sailboat. If it weren't for the two of you we would now be in Count Eggman's clutches."

"Thank you, Tails," Amy said appreciatively, "for thinking of the peppermints to gain us some time. And thank you, Sonic, for biting the peg leg just at the right moment. If it weren't for the two of you, we would now be doomed."

"Pilums," Sonic said appreciatively, and her siblings understood at once that she was thanking Tails for inventing the signaling device, and thanking Amy for reading the atlas and guiding them to Curdled Cave .

They leaned up against one another appreciatively, and small smiles appeared on their damp and anxious faces. They had each other. I'm not sure that "The Hedges had each other" is the moral of this story, but to the three siblings it was enough. To have each other in the midst of their unfortunate lives felt like having a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane, and to the Hedges orphans this felt very fortunate indeed.


	5. the miserable mill

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Fourth

The Miserable Mill

 **Lemony Snicket**

To Cream-

My love flew like a butterfly Until death swooped down like a bat

As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said: "That's the end of that."

 _R_

One

 _Sometime_ during your life-in fact, very soon-you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains. For instance, a book that began with the sentence "Once upon a time there was a family of cunning little chipmunks who lived in a hollow tree" would probably contain a story full of talking animals who get into all sorts of mischief. A book that began with the sentence "Emily sat down and looked at the stack of blueberry pancakes her mother had prepared for her, but she was too nervous about Camp Timbertops to eat a bite" would probably contain a story full of giggly girls who have a grand old time. And a book that began with the sentence "Gary smelled the leather of his brand-new catcher's mitt and waited impatiently for his best friend Larry to come around the corner" would probably contain a story full of sweaty boys who win some sort of trophy. And if you liked mischief, a grand old time, or trophies, you would know which book to read, and you could throw the rest of them away.

But this book begins with the sentence "The Hedge orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest, wondering if their lives would ever get any better," and you should be able to tell that the story that follows will be very different from the story of Gary or Emily or the family of cunning little chipmunks. And this is for the simple reason that the lives of Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge are very different from most people's lives, with the main difference being the amount of unhappiness, horror, and despair. The three children have no time to get into all sorts of mischief, because misery follows them wherever they go. They have not had a grand old time since their parents died in a terrible fire. And the only trophy they would win would be some sort of First Prize for Wretchedness. It is atrociously unfair, of course, that the Hedges have so many troubles, but that is the way the story goes. So now that I've told you that the first sentence will be "The Hedge orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest, wondering if their lives would ever get any better," if you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down.

The Hedge orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest , wondering if their lives would ever get any better. An announcement over a crackly loudspeaker had just told them that in a few minutes they would arrive in the town of Paltryville , where their new caretaker lived, and they couldn't help wondering who in the world would want to live in such dark and eerie countryside. Tails, who was fourteen and the eldest Hedge, looked out at the trees of the forest, which were very tall and had practically no branches, so they looked almost like metal pipes instead of trees. Tails was an inventor, and was always designing machines and devices in his head, with his bangs tied up in a ribbon to help him think, and as he gazed out at the trees he began work on a mechanism that would allow you to climb to the top of any tree, even if it were completely bare. Amy, who was twelve, looked down at the forest floor, which was covered in brown, patchy moss. Amy liked to read more than anything else, and she tried to remember what he had read about Paltryville mosses and whether any of them were edible. And Sonic, who was just an infant, looked out at the smoky gray sky that hung over the forest like a damp sweater. Sonic had four sharp teeth, and biting things with them was what interested him most, along with running, and he was eager to see what there was available to bite in the area, and what it was like to run in the Finite Forest. But even as Tails began planning his invention, and Amy thought of her moss research, and Sonic opened and closed his mouth as a prebiting exercise, and jogged on the spot, the Finite Forest looked so

uninspiring that they couldn't help wondering if their new home would really be a pleasant one.

"What a lovely forest!" Mr. Silver Poe remarked, and coughed into a white handkerchief. Mr. Silver Poe was a banker who had been in charge of managing the Hedge affairs since the fire, and I must tell you that he was not doing a very good job. His two main duties were finding the orphans a good home and protecting the enormous fortune that the children's parents had left behind, and so far each home had been a catastrophe, a word which here means "an utter disaster involving tragedy, deception, and Count Eggman." Count Eggman was a terrible black Hedgehog who wanted the Hedge fortune for himself, and tried every disgusting scheme he could think of to steal it. Time after time he had come very close to succeeding, and time after time the Hedge orphans had revealed his plan, and time after time he had escaped-and all Mr. Silver Poe had ever done was cough. Now he was accompanying the children to Paltryville, and it pains me to tell you that once again Count Eggman would appear with yet another disgusting scheme, and that Mr. Silver Poe would once again fail to do anything even remotely helpful, but for a change would believe the Hedges. "What a lovely forest!" Mr. Silver Poe said again, when he was done coughing. "I think you children will have a good home here. I hope you do, anyway, because I've just received a promotion at Mulctuary Money Management. I'm now the Vice President in Charge of Coins, and from now on I will be busier than ever. If anything goes wrong with you here, I will have to send you to boarding school until I have time to find you another home, so please be on your best behavior."

"Of course, Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said, not adding that he and his siblings had always been on their best behavior but that it hadn't done them any good.

"What is our new caretaker's name?" Amy asked. "You haven't told us."

Mr. Silver Poe took a piece of paper out of his pocket and squinted at it. "His name is Mr. Wuz- Mr. Qui- I can't pronounce it. It's very long and complicated. But he's your late Uncle Ike's, brother's, sister in law's, cousin"

"Can I see?" Amy asked. "Maybe I can figure out how to pronounce it."

"No, no," Mr. Silver Poe said, putting the paper away. "If it's too complicated for an adult, it's much too complicated for a child."

"Ghand!" Sonic shrieked. Like many infants, Sonic spoke mostly in sounds that were often difficult to translate. This time she probably meant something like "But Amy reads many complicated books!"

"He'll tell you what to call him," Mr. Silver Poe continued, as if Sonic had not spoken. "You'll find him at the main office of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, which I'm told is a short walk from the train station."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Tails asked.

"No," Mr. Silver Poe said, and coughed again into his handkerchief. "The train only stops at Paltry-ville once a day, so if I got off the train I would have to stay overnight and I'd miss another day at the bank. I'm just dropping you off here and heading right back into the city."

The Hedge orphans looked worriedly out the window. They weren't very happy about just being dropped off in a strange place, as if they were a pizza being delivered instead of three children all alone in the world.

"What if Count Eggman shows up?" Amy asked quietly. "He swore he'd find us again."

"I have given Mr. Bek- Mr. Duy- I have given your new caretaker a complete description of Count Eggman," said Mr. Silver Poe. "So if by some stretch of the imagination he shows up in Paltryville, Mr. Sho- Mr. Gek- will notify the authorities."

"But Count Eggman is always in disguise," Tails pointed out. "It's often difficult to recognize him. Just about the only way you can tell it's him is if you see that tattoo of an eye that he has on his ankle."

"I included the tattoo in my description," Mr. Silver Poe said impatiently.

"But what about Count Eggman's assistants?" Amy asked. "He usually brings at least one of them with him, to help out with his treachery."

"I described all of them to Mr.- I have described all of them to the owner of the mill," Mr. Silver Poe said, holding a finger up as he counted off Eggman's horrible associates. "The hook-handed man. The bald man with the long nose. Two women with white powder all over their faces. And that rather chubby one who looks like neither a man nor a woman. Your new guardian is aware of them all, and if there's any problem, remember you can always contact me or any of my associates at Mulctuary Money Management. And if he _does_ show up in disguise, I will try to believe you."

"Casca," Sonic said glumly. He probably meant something like "That's not very reassuring, but its better than him not believing us" but nobody heard him over the sound of the train whistle as they arrived at Paltryville Station.

"Here we are," Mr. Silver Poe said, and before the children knew it they were standing in the station, watching the train pull away into the dark trees of the Finite Forest . The clattering noise of the train engine got softer and softer as the train raced out of sight, and soon the three siblings were all alone indeed.

"Well," Tails said, picking up the small bag that contained the children's few clothes, "let's find the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Then we can meet our new caretaker."

"Or at least learn his name," Amy said glumly, and took Sonic's hand.

If you are ever planning a vacation, you may find it useful to acquire a guidebook, which is a book listing interesting and pleasant places to visit and giving helpful hints about what to do when you arrive. Paltryville is not listed in any guidebook, and as the Hedge orphans trudged down Paltryville's one street, they instantly saw why. There were a few small shops on either side of the street, but none of them had any windows. There was a post office, but instead of a flag flying from the flagpole, there was only an old shoe dangling from the top of it, and across from the post office was a high wooden wall that ran all the way to the end of the street. In the middle of the wall was a tall gate, also made of wood, with the words "Lucky Smells Lumbermill" written on it in letters that looked rough and slimy. Alongside the sidewalk, where a row of trees might have been, were towering stacks of old newspapers

instead. In short, everything that might make a town interesting or pleasant had been made boring or unpleasant, and if Paltryville had been listed in a guidebook the only helpful hint about what to do when you got there would be: "Leave." But the three youngsters couldn't leave, of course, and with a sigh Tails led his younger siblings to the wooden gate. He was about to knock when Amy touched him on the shoulder and said, "Look."

"I know," he said. Tails thought she was talking about the letters spelling out "Lucky Smells Lumbermill." Now that they were standing at the gate, the children could see why the letters looked rough and slimy: they were made out of wads and wads of chewed-up gum, just stuck on the gate in the shapes of letters. Other than a sign I saw once that said "Beware" in letters made of dead monkeys, the "Lucky Smells Lumbermill" sign was the most disgusting sign on earth, and Tails thought his sister was pointing that out. But when he turned to agree with her, he saw she wasn't looking at the sign, but down to the far end of the street.

"Look," Amy said again, but Tails had already seen what she was looking at. The two of them stood there without speaking a word, staring hard at the building at the end of Paltryville's one street. Sonic had been examining some of the teeth marks in the gum, but when his siblings fell silent he looked up and saw it, too. For a few seconds the Hedge orphans just looked.

"It must be a coincidence," Tails said, after a long pause. "Of course," Amy said nervously, "a coincidence."

"Varni," Sonic agreed, but he didn't believe it. None of the orphans did. Now that the children had reached the mill, they could see another building, at the far end of the street. Like the other buildings in town, it had no windows, just a round door in the center. But it was the way the building was shaped, and how it was painted, that made the Hedges stare. The building was a sort of oval shape, with curved, skinny sticks sticking out of the top of it. Most of the oval was painted a brownish color, with a big circle of white inside the oval, and a smaller circle of green inside the white circle, and some little black steps led to a little round door that was painted black, so it looked like an even smaller circle inside the green one. The building had been made to look like an eye.

The three children looked at one another, and then at the building, and then at each other again, shaking their heads. Try as they might, they just couldn't believe it was a coincidence that the town in which they were to live had a building that looked just like the tattoo of Count Eggman

 _R_

Two

 _It_ is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and I'm sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and that's the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the news again and again. For instance, I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred-page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness has been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Cream is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life.

The Hedges orphans knocked again and again on the wooden gate, taking care not to hit the chewed-up gum letters with their knuckles, but nobody answered, and at last they tried the gate themselves and found that it was unlocked. Behind the gate was a large courtyard with a dirt floor, and on the dirt floor was an envelope with the word "Hedges" typed on the front. Amy picked up the envelope and opened it, and inside was a note that read as follows:

Memorandum

 _ **To:**_ The Hedge Orphans

 _ **From:**_ Lucky Smells Lumbermill

 _ **Subject:**_ Your Arrival

Enclosed you will find a map of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, including the dormitory where the three of you will he staying, free of charge. Please report to work the following morning along with the other employees. The owner of Lucky Smells Lumbermill expects you to be both assiduous and diligent.

"What do those words mean, 'assiduous' and 'diligent'?" Tails asked, peering over Amy's shoulder.

"'Assiduous' and 'diligent' both mean the same thing," said Amy, who knew lots of impressive words from all the books she had read. "'Hardworking.'"

"But Mr. Silver Poe didn't say anything about _working in_ the lumbermill," Tails said. "I thought we were just going to live here."

Amy frowned at the hand-drawn map that was attached to the note with another wad of gum, "This map looks pretty easy to read," she said. "The dormitory is straight ahead, between the storage shed and the lumbermill itself."

Tails looked straight ahead and saw a gray windowless building on the other side of the courtyard. "I don't want to live," he said, "between the storage shed and the lumbermill itself."

"It doesn't sound like much fun," Amy admitted, "but you never know. The mill might have complicated machines, and you would find it interesting to study them."

"That's true," Tails said. "You never know. It might have some hard wood, and Sonic would find it interesting to bite it, and maybe can run in the woods"

"Snevi!" Sonic shrieked.

"And there might be some interesting lumbermill manuals for me to read," Amy said. "You never know."

"That's right," Tails said. "You never know. This might be a wonderful place to live."

The three siblings looked at one another, and felt a little better. It is true, of course, that you never know. A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out. And as the children began walking toward the gray, windowless building, they felt ready to try out their new home at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, because you never know. But—and my heart aches as I tell you this—I always know. I know because I have been to the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and learned of all the atrocious things that befell these poor orphans during the brief time they lived there. I know because I have talked to some of the people who were there at the time, and heard with my own ears the troublesome story of the children's stay in Paltryville. And I know because I have written down all the details in order to convey to you, the reader, just how miserable their experience was. I know, and this knowledge sits in my heart, heavy as a paperweight. I wish I could have been at the lumbermill when the Hedges were there, because they didn't know. I wish I could tell them what I know, as they walked across the courtyard, raising small clouds of dust with every step. They didn't know, but I know and I wish they knew, if you know what I mean.

When the Hedges reached the door of the gray building, Amy took another look at the map, nodded her head, and knocked. After a long pause, the door creaked open and revealed a confused-looking purple chameleon whose clothes were covered in sawdust. He stared at them for quite some time before speaking.

"No one has knocked on this door," he said finally, "for fourteen years."

Sometimes, when somebody says something so strange that you don't know what to say in return, it is best to just politely say "How do you do?"

"How do you do?" Tails said politely. "I am Tails Hedge, and these are my siblings, Amy and Sonic"

The confused-looking chameleon looked even more confused, and put his hands on his hips, brushing some of the sawdust off his shirt. "Are you sure you're in the right place?" he asked.

"I think so," Amy said. "This is the dormitory at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, isn't it?" "Yes," the chameleon said, "but we're not allowed to have visitors."

"We're not visitors," Tails replied. "We're going to live here."

The man scratched his head, and the Hedges watched as sawdust fell out of his hair. "You're going to live _here,_ at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill?"

"Cigarn!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Look at this note!"

Amy gave the note to the man, who was careful not to touch the gum as she read it over.

Then he looked down at the orphans with his tired, sawdust-sprinkled eyes.

"You're going to _work_ here, too? Children, working in a lumber-mill is a very difficult job. Trees have to be stripped of their bark and sawed into narrow strips to make boards. The boards have to be tied together into stacks and loaded onto trucks. I must tell you that the majority of people who work in the lumber business are grown-ups. But if the owner says you're working here, I guess you're working here. You'd better come inside." The chameleon opened the door further, and the Hedges stepped inside the dormitory. "My name's Espio, by the way," Espio said. "You can join us for dinner in a few minutes, but in the meantime I'll give you a tour of the dormitory." Espio led the youngsters into a large, dimly lit room filled with bunk beds, standing in rows and rows on a cement floor. Sitting or lying down on the bunks were an assortment of people, men and women, all of whom looked tired and all of whom were covered in sawdust. They were sitting together in groups of four or five, playing cards, chatting quietly, or simply staring into space, and a few of them looked up with mild interest as the three siblings walked into the room. The whole place had a damp smell, a smell rooms get when the windows have not been opened for quite some time. Of course, in this case the windows had never been opened, because there weren't any windows, although the children could see that somebody had taken a ballpoint pen and drawn a few windows on the gray cement walls. The window drawings somehow made the room even more pathetic, a word which here means "depressing and containing no windows," and the Hedge orphans felt a lump in their throats just looking at it.

"This here is the room where we sleep," Espio said. "There's a bunk over there in the far corner that you three can have. You can store your bag underneath the bed. Through that door is the bathroom and down that hallway over there is the kitchen. That's pretty much the grand tour. Everyone, this is Tails, Amy and Sonic. They're going to work here."

"But they're _children,"_ one of the women said. "I know," Espio said. "But the owner says they're going to work here, so they're going to work here."

"By the way," Amy said, "what is the owner's name? Nobody has told us."

"I don't know," Espio said, stroking his dusty chin. "He hasn't visited the dormitory for six years or so. Does anybody remember the owner's name?"

"I think it's Mister something," one of the men said. "You mean you never talk to him?" Tails asked.

"We never even see him," Espio said. "The owner lives in a house across from the storage shed, and only comes to the lumbermill for special occasions. We see the foreman all the time, but never the owner."

"Teruca?" Sonic asked, which probably meant "What's a foreman?"

"A foreman," Amy explained, "is somebody who supervises workers. Is he nice, Espio?" "He's _awful_!" one of the other men said, and the rest took up the cry.

"He's _terrible_!" "He's _disgusting_!" "He's _revoltingl "_

"He's _bad_!"

"He's _Miserable_!"

"He's _evil_!"

"He's _the worst foreman the world has ever seen_!"

"He is pretty bad," Espio said to the Hedges. "The guy we used to have, Foreman Firstein, was nice to us. But last week he stopped showing up. It was very odd. The man who replaced him, Foreman Flacutono, is very mean. You'll stay on his good side if you know what's good for you."

"He doesn't have a good side," a woman said.

"Now, now," Espio said. "Everything and everybody has a good side. Come on, let's have our supper."

The Hedge orphans smiled at Espio, and followed the other employees of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill into the kitchen, but they still had lumps in their throats as big as the lumps in the pasta that they ate for supper. The children could tell, from Espio's statement about everything and everybody having a good side, that he was an optimist. "Optimist" is a word which here refers to a person, such as Espio, who thinks hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. For instance, if an optimist had his right arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!"

The Hedge orphans ate their damp pasta, with cold sauce and raw garlic, they tried to be optimists like Espio, but try as they might, none of their thoughts turned out pleasant or hopeful. They thought of the bunk bed they would share, in the smelly room with windows drawn on the walls. They thought of doing hard work in the lumbermill, getting sawdust all over them and being bossed around by Foreman Flacutono. They thought of the eye-shaped building outside the wooden gate. And most of all, they thought of their parents, their poor parents whom they missed so much and whom they would never see again. They thought all through supper, and they

thought while changing into their pajamas, and they thought as Tails tossed and turned in the top bunk and Amy and Sonic tossed and turned below him. They thought, as they did in the courtyard, that you never know, and that their new home could still be a wonderful one. But they could guess. And as the Lucky Smells employees snored around them, the children thought about all their unhappy circumstances, and began guessing. They tossed and turned, and guessed and guessed, and by the time they fell asleep there wasn't a single optimist in the Hedge bunk.

Morning is an important time of the day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. For instance, if you wake up to the sounds of twittering birds and you find yourself on an enormous canopy bed with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you know your day will be splendid. If you wake up to the sounds of church bells and find yourself in a fairly big regular bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of hot tea and toast on a plate, you will know that your day will be O.K. And if you wake up to the sound of somebody banging two metal pots together, and find

yourself in a small bunk bed, with a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all, you will know that your day will be horrid.

You and I, of course, cannot be too surprised that the Hedge orphans' first day at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was a horrid one. And the Hedges certainly did not expect twittering birds or a butler, not after their dismaying arrival. But never in their most uneasy dreams did they expect the cacophony—a word which here means "the sound of two metal pots being banged together by a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all"— that awoke them.

"Get up, you lazy, smelly things!" cried the foreman in an odd-sounding voice. He spoke as if he were covering his mouth with his hands. "Time for work, everybody! There's a new shipment of logs just waiting to be made into lumber!"

The children sat up and rubbed their eyes. All around them, the employees of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill were stretching and covering their ears at the sound of the pots. Espio, who was already up and making his bunk neatly, gave the Hedges a tired smile.

"Good morning, Hedges" Espio said. "And good morning, Foreman Flacutono. May I introduce you to your three newest employees? Foreman Flacutono, this is Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge"

"I heard we'd have some new workers," the foreman said, dropping the pots to the floor with a clatter, "but nobody told me they'd be midgets."

"We're not midgets," Tails explained. "We're children."

"Children, midgets, what do I care?" Foreman Flacutono said in his muffled voice, walking over to the orphans' bunk. "All I care is that you get out of bed this instant and go straight to the mill."

The Hedges hopped out of the bunk bed, not wanting to anger a man who banged pots together instead of saying "Good morning." But once they got a good look at Foreman Flacutono they wanted to hop back into their bunks and pull the covers over their heads.

I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on the inside would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does. Appearance matters a great deal, because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves. And it was the way Foreman Flacutono presented himself that made the orphans want to jump back into their bunks. He was wearing stained overalls, which never make a good impression, and his shoes were taped shut instead of being tied up with laces. But it was the foreman's head that was the most unpleasant. Foreman Flacutono was bald, as bald as an egg, but rather than admit to being bald like sensible people do, he had purchased a curly white wig that made it look like he had a bunch of large dead worms all over his head. Some of the worm hairs stuck straight up, and some of them curled off to one side, and some of them ran down his ears and his forehead, and a few of them stretched straight out ahead as if they wanted to escape from Foreman Flacutono's scalp. Below his wig was a pair of dark and beady eyes, which blinked at the orphans in a most unpleasant way.

As for the rest of his face, it was impossible to tell what it looked like, because it was covered with a cloth mask, such as doctors wear when they are in hospitals. Foreman Flacutono's nose was all curled up under the mask, like an alligator hiding in the mud, and when he spoke the Hedges could see his mouth opening and closing behind the cloth. It is perfectly proper to wear these masks in hospitals, of course, to stop the spreading of germs, but it makes no sense if you are the foreman of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. The only reason Foreman Flacutono could have for wearing a surgical mask would be to frighten people, and as he peered down at the Hedge orphans they were quite frightened indeed.

"The first thing you can do, Sledges," Foreman Flacutono said, "is pick up my pots.

And never make me drop them again."

"But we didn't make you drop them," Amy said.

"Bram!" Sonic added, which probably meant something like "and our last name is _Hedges."_

"If you don't pick up the pots _this instant"_ Foreman Flacutono said, "you will get no chewing gum for lunch."

The Hedges orphans did not care much for chewing gum, particularly peppermint chewing gum, which they were allergic to, but they ran to the pots. Tails picked one up and Sonic picked up the other, while Amy hurriedly made the beds.

"Give them to me," Foreman Flacutono snapped, and grabbed the pots out of the boys' hands. "Now, workers, we've wasted enough time already. To the mills! Logs are waiting for us!"

"I hate log days," one of the employees grumbled, but everyone followed Foreman Flacutono out of the dormitory and across the dirt-floored courtyard to the lumbermill, which was a dull gray building with many smokestacks sticking out of the top like a porcupine's quills. The three children looked at one another worriedly. Except for one summer day, back when their parents were still alive, when the Hedges had opened a lemonade stand in front of their house, the orphans had never had jobs, and they were nervous.

The Hedges followed Foreman Flacutono into the lumbermill and saw that it was all one huge room, filled with enormous machines. Tails looked at a shiny steel machine with a pair of steel pinchers like the arms of a crab, and tried to figure out how this invention worked. Amy examined a machine that looked like a big cage, with an enormous ball of string trapped inside, and tried to remember what he had read about lumbermills. Sonic stared at a rusty, creaky-looking machine that had a circular sawblade that looked quite jagged and fearsome and wondered if it was sharper than his own teeth. And all three Hedges gazed at a machine, covered in tiny smokestacks, that held a huge, flat stone up in the air, and wondered what in the world it was doing there.

The Hedges had only a few seconds to be curious about these machines, however, before Foreman Flacutono began clanging his two pots together and barking out orders. "The logs!" he shouted. "Turn on the pincher machine and get started with the logs!"

Espio ran to the pincher machine and pressed an orange button on it. With a rough whistling noise, the pinchers opened, and stretched toward the far wall of the lumbermill. The orphans had been so curious about the machines that they hadn't noticed the huge pile of trees that were stacked, leaves and roots and all, along one wall of the lumbermill as if a giant had simply torn a small forest out of the ground and dropped it into the room. The pinchers picked up the tree on top of the stack and began lowering it to the ground, while Foreman Flacutono banged his pots together and shouted, "The debarkers! The debarkers!"

Another employee walked to the back corner of the room, where there were a stack of tiny green boxes and a pile of flat metal rectangles, as long and as thin as an adult eel. Without a word she picked up the pile of rectangles and began distributing them to the workers. "Take a debarker," she whispered to the children. "One each."

The children each took a rectangle and stood there, confused and hungry, just as the tree touched the ground. Foreman Flacutono clanged his pots together again, and the employees crowded around the tree and began scraping against it with their debarkers, filing the bark off each tree as you or I might file our nails. "You, too, midgets!" the foreman shouted, and the children found room among the adults to scrape away at the tree.

Espio had described the rigors of working in a lumbermill, and it had certainly sounded difficult. But as you remember, Espio was an optimist, so the actual work turned out to be much, much worse. For one thing, the debarkers were adult-sized, and it was difficult for the children to use them. Sonic could scarcely lift his debarker at all, and so used his teeth instead, but Tails and Amy had teeth of only an average sharpness and so had to struggle with the debarkers. The three children scraped and scraped, but only tiny pieces of bark fell from the tree. For another thing, the children had not eaten any breakfast, and as the morning wore on they were so hungry that it was difficult to even lift the debarker, let alone scrape it against the tree. And for one more thing, once a tree was finally cleared of bark, the pinchers would drop another one onto the ground, and they would have to start all over again, which was extremely boring. But for the worst thing of all, the noise at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was simply deafening. The debarkers made their displeasing scraping sound as they dragged across the trees. The pinchers made their rough whistling noise as they picked up logs. And Foreman Flacutono made his horrendous clanging noise as he banged his pots together. The orphans grew exhausted and frustrated. Their stomachs hurt and their ears rang. And they were unbelievably bored.

Finally, as the employees finished their fourteenth log, Foreman Flacutono banged his pots together and shouted, "Lunch break!" The workers stopped scraping, and the pinchers stopped whistling, and everyone sat down, exhausted, on the ground. Foreman Flacutono threw his pots on the floor, walked over to the tiny green boxes, and grabbed one. Opening it with a rip, he began to toss small pink squares at the workers, one to each. "You have five minutes for lunch!" he shouted, throwing three pink squares at the children. The Hedges could see that a damp patch had appeared on his surgical mask, from spit flying out of his mouth as he gave orders. "Just five minutes!"

Tails looked from the damp patch on the mask to the pink square in his hand, and for a second he didn't believe what he was looking at. "It's gum!" he said. "This is gum!"

Amy looked from her brother's square to her own. "Gum isn't _lunch\"_ she cried. "Gum isn't even a _snack\"_

"Tanco!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "And babies shouldn't even have gum, because they could choke on it!"

"You'd better eat your gum," Espio said, moving over to sit next to the children. "It's not very filling, but it's the only thing they'll let you eat until dinnertime."

"Well, maybe we can get up a little earlier tomorrow," Tails said, "and make some sandwiches."

"We don't have any sandwich-making ingredients," Espio said. "We just get one meal, usually pasta, every evening."

"Well, maybe we can go into town and buy some ingredients," Amy said. "I wish we could," Espio said, "but we don't have any money."

"What about your wages?" Amy asked. "Surely you can spend some of the money you earn on sandwich ingredients."

Espio gave the children a sad smile, and reached into his pocket. "At the Lucky Smells Lumbermill," he said, bringing out a bunch of tiny scraps of paper, "they don't pay us in money. They pay us in coupons. See, here's what we all earned yesterday: twenty percent off a shampoo at Sam's Haircutting Palace . The day before that we earned this coupon for a free refill of iced tea, and last week we earned this one: 'Buy Two Banjos and Get One Free.' The trouble is, we can't buy two banjos, because we don't have anything but these coupons. Foreman Firstein sometimes gave us food for breakfast, and lunch, but now, well, you know"

"Nelnu!" Sonic shrieked, but Foreman Flacutono began banging his pots together before anyone could _realize_ what he meant.

"Lunch is over!" he shouted. "Back to work, everyone! Everyone except you, Fetches! The boss wants to see you three in his office right away!"

The three siblings put down their debark-ers and looked at one another. They had been working so hard that they had almost forgotten about meeting their guardian, whatever his name was. What sort of man would force small children to work in a lumbermill? What sort of man would hire a monster like Foreman Flacutono? What sort of man would pay his employees in coupons, or feed them only gum? Foreman Flacutono banged his pots together again and pointed at the door, and the children stepped out of the noisy room into the quiet of the courtyard. Amy took the map out of her pocket and pointed the way to the office. With each step, the orphans raised small clouds of dirt that matched the clouds of dread hovering over them. Their bodies ached from the morning's work, and they had an uneasy feeling in their empty stomachs. As they had guessed from the way their day began, the three children were having a bad day. But as they got closer and closer to the office, they wondered if their day was about to get even worse.

 _R_

Four

 _As_ I'm sure you know, whenever there is a mirror around, it is almost impossible not to take a look at yourself. Even though we all know what we look like, we all like just to look at our reflections, if only to see how we're doing. As the Hedges orphans waited outside the office to meet their new guardian, they looked in a mirror hanging in the hallway and they saw at once that they were not doing so well. The children looked tired and they looked hungry. Tails' hair was covered in small pieces of bark. Amy's glasses were hanging askew, a phrase which here means "tilted to one side from leaning over logs the entire morning." And there were small pieces of wood stuck in Sonic's four teeth from using them as debarkers. Behind them, reflected in the mirror, was a painting of the seashore, which was hanging on the opposite wall, which made them feel even worse, because the seashore always made them remember that terrible, terrible day when the three siblings went to the beach and soon received the news from Mr. Silver Poe that their parents had died. The children stared at their own reflections, and stared at the painting of the seashore behind them, and it was almost unbearable to think about everything that had happened to them since that day.

"If someone had told me," Tails said, "that day at the beach, that before long I'd find myself living at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, I would have said they were crazy."

"If someone had told _me"_ Amy said, "that day at the beach, that before long I'd find myself pursued by a greedy, evil man named Count Eggman, I would have said they were insane."

"Wora," Sonic said, which meant something like "If someone had told _me,_ that day at the beach, that before long I'd find myself using my four teeth to scrape the bark off trees, I would have said they were psychoneurotically disturbed."

The dismayed orphans looked at their reflections, and their dismayed reflections looked back at them. For several moments, the Hedges stood and pondered the mysterious way their lives were going, and they were thinking so hard about it that they jumped a little when somebody spoke.

"You must be Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge," the somebody said, and the children turned to see a very tall, very fat purple cat with very short hair. He was wearing a bright blue vest and holding a peach. He smiled and walked toward them, but then frowned as he drew closer. "Why, you're covered in pieces of bark," he said. "I hope you haven't been hanging around the lumbermill. That can be very dangerous for small children."

Tails looked at the peach, and wondered if he dared ask for a bite. "We've been working there all morning," he said.

The cat frowned. _"Working_ there?"

Amy looked at the peach, and had to stop himself from grabbing it right out of the man's hand. "Yes," she said. "We received your instructions and went right to work. Today was a new log day."

The cat scratched his head. _"Instructions?"_ he asked. "What in the world are you talking about?"

Sonic looked at the peach, and it was all she could do not to leap up and sink her teeth right into it. "Molub!" she shrieked, which must have meant something like "We're talking about the typed note that told us to go to work at the lumbermill!"

"Well, I don't understand how three people as young as yourselves were put to work in the lumbermill, but please accept my humblest apologies, and let me tell you that it will not happen again. Why, you're _children,_ for goodness' sake! You will be treated as members of the family!"

The orphans looked at one another. Could it be that their horrible experiences in Paltryville were just a mistake? "You mean we don't have to debark any more logs?" Tails asked.

"Of course not," the cat said. "I can't believe you were even allowed inside. Why, there are some nasty machines in there. I'm going to speak to your new guardian about it immediately."

 _"You're_ not our new guardian?" Amy asked.

"Oh no," the cat said. "Forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Big, and it's very nice to have the three of you here at Lucky Smells Lumbermill."

"It's very nice to be here," Tails lied politely.

"I find that difficult to believe," Big said, "seeing as you've been forced to work in the mill, but let's put that behind us and have a fresh start. Would you care for a peach?"

"They've had their lunch!" came a booming voice, and the orphans whirled around and stared at the coyote they saw. He was quite short, shorter than Amy, and dressed in a suit made of a very shiny dark-green material that made him look more like a reptile than a person. But what made them stare most was his face—or, rather, the cloud of smoke that was covering his face. The coyote was smoking a cigar, and the smoke from the cigar covered his entire head. The cloud of smoke made the Hedge children very curious as to what his face really looked like, and you may be curious as well, but you will have to take that curiosity to your grave, for I will tell you now, before we go any further, that the Hedges never saw this man's face, and neither did I, and neither will you.

"Oh, hello, sir," Big said. "I was just meeting the Hedge children. Did you know they had arrived?"

"Of course I knew they arrived," the smoke-faced coyote said. "I'm not an idiot."

"No, of course not," Big said. "But were you aware that they were put to work in the lumbermill? On a new log day, no less! I was just explaining to them what a terrible mistake that was."

"It wasn't a mistake," the man said. "I don't make mistakes, Big. I'm not an idiot." He turned so the cloud of smoke faced the children. "Hello, Hedge orphans. I thought we should lay eyes on one another."

"Batex!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "But we're not laying eyes on one another!"

"I have no time to talk about that," the coyote said. "I see you've met Big. He's my partner. We split everything fifty-fifty, which is a good deal. Don't you think so?"

"I guess so," Amy said. "I don't know very much about the lumber business." "Oh, yes," Big said, in a voice that didn't sound true. "Of course I think it's a good deal."

"Well," the coyote said, "I want to give you three a good deal as well. Now, I heard about what happened to your parents, which is really too bad. And I heard all about this Count Eggman fellow, who sounds like quite a jerk, and those odd-looking people who work for him. So when Mr. Silver Poe gave me a call, I worked out a deal. The deal is this: I will try to make sure that Count Eggman and his associates never go anywhere near you, and you will work in my lumbermill until you come of age and get all that money. Is that a fair deal?"

The Hedge orphans did not answer this question, because it seemed to them the answer was obvious. A fair deal, as everyone knows, is when both people give something of more or less equal value. If you were bored with playing with your chemistry set, and you gave it to your brother in exchange for his dollhouse, that would be a fair deal. If someone offered to smuggle me out of the country in her sailboat, in exchange for free tickets to an ice show, that would be a fair deal. But working for years in a lumbermill in exchange for the owner's _trying_ to keep Count Eggman away is an enormously unfair deal, and the three youngsters knew it.

"Oh, sir," Big said, smiling nervously at the Hedges. "You can't be serious. A lumbermill is no place for small children to work."

"Of course it is," the man said. He reached a hand up into his cloud to scratch an itch somewhere on his face. "It will teach them responsibility. It will teach them the value of work. And it will teach them how to make flat wooden boards out of trees."

"Well, you probably know best," Big said, shrugging.

"But we could _read_ about all of those things," Amy said, "and learn about them that way."

"That's true, sir," Big said. "They could study in my library. They seem very well behaved, and I'm sure they would cause no trouble."

"Your library!" the man said sharply. "What nonsense! Don't listen to Big, you children. My partner has insisted that we create a library for the employees at the mill, and so I let him. But it is no substitute for hard work."

 _"Please,_ sir," Tails pleaded. "At least let our little brother stay in the dormitory. He's only a baby."

"I have offered you a very good deal," the man said. "As long as you stay within the gates of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, this Count Eggman will not come near you. In addition, I'm giving you a place to sleep, a nice hot dinner, and a stick of gum for lunch. And all you have to do in return is a few years' work. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Well, it was nice to meet you. Unless you have any questions, I'll be going now. My pizza is getting cold, and if there's one thing I hate it's a cold lunch."

"I have a question," Tails said, although the truth of the matter is he had many questions. Most of them began with the phrase "How can you." "How can you force small children to work in a lumbermill?" was one of them. "How can you treat us so horridly, after all we've been through?" was another. And then there was "How can you pay your employees in coupons instead of money?" and "How can you feed us only gum for lunch?" and "How can you stand to have a cloud of smoke covering your face?" and "How can you only feed us once a day" and "How can you think that this is a fair deal" But none of these seemed like questions that were proper to ask, at least not out loud. So Tails looked his new guardian right in his cloud and asked, "What is your name?"

"Never mind what my name is," the man said. "No one can pronounce it anyway. But some call me by my middle name Ántoneie' but I prefer if you would just call me Sir."

"I'll show the children to the door, Sir," 'Big said quickly, and with a wave of his hand, the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumber-mill was gone. Big waited nervously for a moment, to make sure Sir was far enough away. Then he leaned in to the children and handed them the peach. "Never mind what he said about your already having your lunch," he said. "Have this peach."

"Oh, thank you," Amy cried, and hurriedly divided the peach among herself and her siblings, giving the biggest piece to Sonic because he hadn't even had her gum.

The Hedge children wolfed down the peach, and under normal circumstances it would not have been polite to eat something so quickly and so noisily, particularly in front of someone they did not know very well. But these circumstances were not at all normal, so even a manners expert would excuse them for their gobbling.

"You know," Big said, "because you seem like such nice children, and because you've worked so very hard today, I'm going to do something for you. Can you guess what it is?"

"Talk to Sir," Amy said, wiping peach juice off her chin, "and convince him that we shouldn't work in the lumbermill?"

"Well, no," Big admitted. "That wouldn't do any good. He won't listen to me."

"But you're his partner," Tails pointed out.

"That doesn't matter," Big replied. "When Sir has made up his mind, he has made up his mind. I know he sometimes is a little bit mean, but you'll have to excuse him. He had a very terrible childhood. Do you understand?"

Tails looked at the painting of the seashore, and thought once again of that dreadful

day at the beach. "Yes," he sighed. "I understand. I think I'm having a very terrible childhood myself."

"Well, I know what will make you feel better," Big said, "at least a little bit. Let me show you the library before you go back to work. Then you can visit it whenever you want. Come on, it's right down the hall."

Big led the Hedges down the hallway, and even though they would soon be back at work, even though they had been offered one of the least fair deals ever offered to children, the three siblings felt a little bit better. Whether it was Uncle Knuckles' library of reptile books, or Aunt Sticks library of grammar books, or Justice Tikal Strauss's library of law books, or, best of all, their parents' library of all kinds of books—all burned up now, alas— libraries always made them feel a little bit better. Just knowing that they could read made the Hedge orphans feel as if their wretched lives could be a little brighter. At the end of a hallway was a little door, and Big stopped at the door, smiled at the children, and opened the door. The library was a large room, and it was filled with elegant wooden bookshelves and comfortable-looking sofas on which to sit and read. On one wall was a row of windows, which let in more than enough light for reading, and on the other wall was a row of landscape paintings, perfect for resting one's eyes. The Hedge children stepped inside the room and took a good look around. But they did not feel any better, not at all.

"Where are the books?" Amy asked. "All these elegant bookshelves are empty."

"That's the only thing wrong with this library," Big admitted. "Sir wouldn't give me any money to buy books."

"You mean there are no books at all?" Tails asked.

"Just three," Big said, and walked to the farthest bookshelf. There, on the bottom shelf, were three books sitting all by themselves. "Without money, of course, it was difficult to acquire any books, but I did have three books donated. Sir donated his book, _The History of Lucky Smells Lumbermill._ The mayor of Paltryville donated this book, _The Paltryville Constitution._ And here's _Advanced Ocular Science,_ donated by Dr. Rouge Orwell, a doctor who lives in town."

Big held up the three books to show the Hedges what each one looked like, and the children stared in dismay and fear. _The History of Lucky Smells Lumbermill_ ' had a painting of Sir on the cover, with a cloud of smoke covering his face. _The Paltryville Constitution_ had a photograph of the Paltryville post office, with the old shoe dangling from the flagpole in front. But it was the cover of _Advanced Ocular Science_ that made the Hedge children stare. You have heard, many times I'm sure, that you should not judge a book by its cover. But just as it is difficult to believe that a man who is not a doctor wearing a surgical mask and a white wig will turn out to be a charming person, it was difficult for the children to believe that _Advanced Ocular Science_ was going to cause them anything but trouble. The word "ocular," you might not know, means "related to the eye," but even if you didn't know this you could figure it out from the cover. For printed on the cover was an image that the children recognized. They recognized it from their own nightmares, and from personal experience. It was an image of an eye, and the Hedge orphans recognized it as the mark of Count Eggman.

In the days that followed the Hedge orphans had pits in their stomachs. In Sonic's case it was understandable as when Amy had divided up the peach, she had gotten the part with the pit. Normally of course one does not eat the pit part of the peach, but Sonic was very hungry, and liked to eat hard things, so the pit ended up in his stomach along with the parts of the fruit that you or I might find more suitable. But the pit in the Hedge stomachs was not so much from the snack that Big

had given them but from an overall feeling of doom. They were certain that Count Eggman was lurking nearby, like some predator waiting to pounce on the children while they weren't looking.

So each morning, when Foreman Flacutono clanged his pots together to wake everyone up, the Hedges took a good look at him to see if Count Eggman had taken his place. It would have been just like Count Eggman to put a white wig on his head and a surgical mask over his face, and snatch the Hedges right out of their bunk. But Foreman Flacutono always had the same dark and beady eyes, which didn't look a thing like Count Eggman's shiny ones, and he always spoke in his rough, muffled voice, which was the opposite of the smooth, snarly voice of Count Eggman. Also they realized that Foreman Flacutono was a mongoose, and not a hedgehog. When the children walked across the dirt-floored courtyard to the lumbermill, they took a good look at their fellow employees. It would have been just like Count Eggman to get himself hired as an employee, and snatch the orphans away while Foreman Flacutono wasn't looking. But although all the workers looked tired, and sad, and hungry, none of them looked evil, or greedy, or had such awful manners.

And as the orphans performed the backbreaking labor of the lumbermill—the word "back- breaking" here means "so difficult and tiring that it felt like the orphans' backs were breaking, even though they actually weren't"—they wondered if Count Eggman would use one of the enormous machines to somehow get his hands on their fortune. But that didn't seem to be the case, either. After a few days of tearing the bark off the trees, the debarkers were put back in their corner, and the giant pincher machine was turned off. Next, the workers had to pick up the barkless trees themselves, one by one, and hold them against the buzzing circular saw until it had sliced each tree into flat boards. The youngsters' arms were soon achy and covered in splinters from lifting all of the logs, but Count Eggman did not take advantage of their weakened arms to kidnap them. After a few days of sawing, Foreman Flacutono ordered Espio to start up the machine with the enormous ball of string inside. The machine wrapped the string around small bundles of boards, and the employees had to gather around and tie the string into very complicated knots, to hold the bundles together. The siblings' fingers were soon so sore that they could scarcely hold the coupons they were given each day, but Count Eggman did not try to force them to surrender their fortune. Day after dreary day went by, and although the children were convinced that he must be somewhere nearby, Count Eggman simply did not show up. It was very puzzling.

"It is very puzzling," Tails said one day, during their gum break. "Count Eggman is simply nowhere to be found."

"I know," Amy said, rubbing her right thumb, which was the sorest. "That building looks like his tattoo, and so does that book cover. But Count Eggman himself hasn't shown his face."

"Elund!" Sonic said thoughtfully. He probably meant something like "It is certainly perplexing."

Tails snapped his fingers, frowning because it hurt. "I've thought of something," he said. "Amy, you just said he hasn't shown his face. Maybe he's Sir, in disguise. We can't tell what Sir really looks like because of that cloud of smoke. Count Eggman could have dressed in a green suit and taken up smoking just to fool us."

"I thought of that, too," Amy said. "But he's much shorter than Count Eggman, and I don't know how you can disguise yourself as a much shorter person, or another species."

"Chorn!" Sonic pointed out, which meant something like "And his voice sounds nothing like Count Eggman's."

"That's true," Tails said, and gave Sonic a small piece of wood that was sitting on the floor. Because babies should not have gum, Sonics older siblings gave him these small tree scraps during the lunch break. Sonic did not eat the wood, of course, but he chewed on it and pretended it was a carrot, or an apple, or a beef and cheese enchilada, all of which he loved. He was too exhausted to even run.

"It might just be that Count Eggman hasn't found us," Amy said. "After all, Paltryville is in the middle of nowhere. It could take him years to track us down."

"Pelli!" Sonic exclaimed, which meant something like "But that doesn't explain the eye- shaped building, or the cover of the book!"

"Those things could just be coincidence," Tails admitted. "We're so scared of Count Eggman that maybe we're just thinking we're seeing him everywhere. Maybe he won't show up. Maybe we really are safe here."

"That's the spirit," said Espio, who had been sitting near them all this time. "Look on the bright side. Lucky Smells Lumbermill might not be your favorite place, but at least there's no sign of this Eggman guy you keep talking about. This might turn out to be the most fortunate part of your lives."

"I admire your optimism," Amy said, smiling at Espio. "Me too," Tails said.

"Tenpa," Sonic agreed.

"That's the spirit," Espio said again, and stood up to stretch his legs. The Hedge orphans nodded, but looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes. It was true that Count Eggman hadn't shown up, or at least he hadn't shown up yet. But their situation was far from fortunate. They had to wake up to the clanging of pots, and be ordered around by Foreman Flacutono. They only had gum—or, in Sonic's case, imaginary enchiladas—for lunch. And worst of all, working in the lumbermill was so exhausting that they didn't have the energy to do anything else. Even though he was near complicated machines every day, Tails hadn't even thought about inventing something for a very long time. Even though Amy was free to visit Big's library whenever she wanted to, she hadn't even glanced at any of the three books. And even though there were plenty of hard things around to bite, and tons of empty space to run, Sonic hadn't closed his mouth around more than a few of them, or even ran around the area. The children missed studying reptiles with Uncle Knuckles. They even missed living over Lake Lachrymose with Aunt Sticks. And most of all, of course, they missed living with their parents, which was where, after all, they truly belonged.

"Well," Tails said, after a pause, "we'll only have to work here for a few years. Then I will be of age, and we can use some of the Hedge fortune. I'd like to build an inventing studio for myself, perhaps over Lake Lachrymose , where Aunt Sticks' house used to be, so we can always remember her."

"And I'd like to build a library," Amy said, "that would be open to the public. And I've always hoped that we could buy back Uncle Knuckles' reptile collection, and take care of all the reptiles."

"Dole!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "And I could be a dentist and an athlete!"

"What in the world does 'Dole' mean?"

The orphans looked up and saw that Big had come into the lumbermill. He was smiling at them and taking something out of his pocket.

"Hello, Big," Tails said. "It's nice to see you. What have you been up to?"

"Ironing Sir's shirts," Big answered. "He has a lot of shirts, and he's too busy to iron them himself. I've been meaning to come by, but the ironing took a long time. I brought you some carrots. I was afraid to take more than a little bit, because Sir would know that it was missing, but here you go."

"Thank you very much," Amy said politely. "We'll share this with the other employees."

"Well, O.K.," Big said, "but last week they got a coupon for fifty percent off carrots, so they probably bought plenty of it."

"Maybe they did," Tails said, knowing full well that there was no way any of the workers could afford beef jerky. "Big, we've been meaning to ask you about one of the books in your library. You know the one with the eye on the cover? Where did you—"

Tails' question was interrupted by the sound of Foreman Flacutono's pots being banged together. "Back to work!" he shouted. "Back to work! We have to finish tying the bundles today, so there's no time for chitchat!" "I would just like to talk to these children for a few more minutes, Foreman Flacutono," Big said. "Surely we can extend the lunch break just a little bit."

"Absolutely not!" Foreman Flacutono said, striding over to the orphans. "I have my orders from Sir, and I intend to carry them out. Unless you'd like to tell Sir that—"

"Oh, no," Big said quickly, backing away from Foreman Flacutono. "I don't think that's necessary."

"Good," the foreman said shortly. "Now get up, midgets! Lunch is over!"

The children sighed and stood up. They had long ago given up trying to convince Foreman Flacutono that they weren't midgets. They waved good-bye to Big, and walked slowly to the waiting bundle of boards, with Foreman Flacutono walking behind them, and at that moment one of the children had a trick played on him which I hope has never been played on you. This trick involves sticking your foot out in front of a person who is walking, so the person trips and falls on the ground. A policeman did it to me once, when I was carrying a crystal ball belonging to a Gypsy fortune-teller who never forgave me for tumbling to the ground and shattering her ball into hundreds of pieces. It is a mean trick, and it is easy to do, and I'm sorry to say that Foreman Flacutono did it to Amy right at this moment. Amy fell

right to the ground of the lumbermill, her glasses falling off her face and skittering over to the bundle of boards.

"Hey!" Amy said. "You tripped me!" One of the most annoying aspects of this sort of trick is that the person who does it usually pretends not to know what you're talking about. "I don't know what you're talking about," Foreman Flacutono said.

Amy was too annoyed to argue. She stood up, and Tails walked over to fetch her glasses. But when he leaned over to pick them up, he saw at once that something was very, very wrong. "Rotup!" Sonic shrieked, and he spoke the truth. When Amy's glasses had skittered across the room, they had scraped against the floor and hit the boards rather hard. Tails picked the glasses up, and they looked like a piece of modern sculpture a friend of mine made long ago. The sculpture was called _Twisted, Cracked, and Hopelessly Broken._

"My sister's glasses!" Tails cried. "They're twisted, and cracked! They're hopelessly broken, and she can scarcely see anything without them!"

"Too bad for you," Foreman Flacutono said, shrugging at Amy. "Wear your stupid brothers 'one"

"We have different lenses!" Amy cried squinting "Tails' has better eyes than me!"

"Too bad!" Foreman Flacutono said

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Big said. "She needs a replacement pair, Foreman Flacutono.

A child could see that."

"Not me," Amy said. "I can scarcely see anything."

"Well, take my arm," Big said. "There's no way you can work in a lumbermill without being able to see what you're doing. I'll take you to the eye doctor right away."

"Oh, thank you," Tails said, relieved.

"Is there an eye doctor nearby?" Amy asked.

"Oh yes," Big replied. "The closest one is Dr. Rouge Orwell, who wrote that book you were talking about. Dr. Rouge Orwell's office is just outside the doors of the mill. I'm sure you noticed it on your way here—it's made to look like a giant eye. Come on, Amy."

"Oh, no, Big!" Tails said. "Don't take her there!"

Big cupped a hand to his ear. "What did you say?" he shouted. Espio had flipped a switch on the string machine, and the ball of string had begun to spin inside its cage, making a loud whirring sound as the employees got back to work.

"That building has the mark of Count Eggman!" Amy shouted, but Foreman Flacutono had begun to clang his pots together, and Big shook his head to indicate he couldn't hear.

"Yoryar!" Sonic shrieked, but Big just shrugged and led Amy out of the mill.

The two Hedge brothers looked at one another. The whirring sound continued, and Foreman Flacutono kept on clanging his pots, but that wasn't the loudest sound that the two boys heard. Louder than the machine, louder than the pots, was the sound of their own furiously beating hearts as Big took their sister away.

 _R_

Six

"I tell you, you have nothing to worry about," Espio said, as Tails and Sonic picked at their casserole. It was dinnertime, but Amy had still not returned from Dr. Rouge Orwell's, and the young Hedge boys were worried sick. After work, while walking across the dirty courtyard with their fellow employees, Tails and Sonic had peered worriedly at the wooden gate that led out to Paltryville, and were dismayed to see no sign of Amy. When they arrived at the dormitory, Tails and Sonic looked out the window to watch for him, and they were so anxious that it took them several minutes to realize that the window was not a real one, but one drawn on the blank wall with a ballpoint pen. Then they went out and sat on the doorstep, looking out at the empty courtyard, until Espio called them in to supper. And now it was getting on toward bedtime, and not only had their sister still not returned, but Espio was insisting that they had nothing to worry about.

"I think we do, Espio," Tails said. "I think we _do_ have something to worry about. Amy has been gone all afternoon, and Sonic and I are worried that something might have happened to her. Something awful."

"Becer!" Sonic agreed.

"I know that doctors can seem scary to young children," Espio said, "but doctors are your friends, and they can't hurt you."

Tails looked at Espio and saw that their conversation would go nowhere. "You're right," he said tiredly, even though he was quite wrong. As anyone who's ever been to a doctor knows, doctors are not necessarily your friends, any more than mail deliverers are your friends, or butchers are your friends, or refrigerator repair-people are your friends. A doctor is a man or woman whose job it is to make you feel better, that's all, and if you've ever had a

shot you know that the statement "Doctors can't hurt you" is simply absurd. Tails and Sonic, of course, were worried that Dr. Rouge Orwell had some connection with Count Eggman, not that their sister would get a shot, but it was useless to try to explain such things to an optimist. So they merely picked at their casserole and waited for their sister until it was time for bed.

"Dr. Rouge Orwell must have fallen behind in her appointments," Espio said, as Tails and Sonic tucked themselves into the bottom bunk. "Her waiting room must be absolutely full."

"Suski, Sonic said sadly, which meant something along the lines of "I hope so, "Espio."

Espio smiled at the two Hedges and turned out the lights in the dormitory. The employees whispered to each other for a few minutes, and then were quiet, and before too long Tails and Sonic were surrounded by the sound of snores. The children did not sleep, of course, but stared out into the dark room with a growing feeling of dismay. Sonic made a squeaky, sad noise, like the closing of a door, and Tails took his brother's fingers, which were sore from tying knots all day long, and blew on them gently. But even as the Hedge fingers felt better, the Hedge brothers did not. They lay together on the bunk and tried to imagine where Amy could be and what was happening to her. But one of the worst things about Count Eggman is that his evil ways are so despicable that it is impossible to imagine what would be up his sleeve next. Count Eggman had done so many horrible deeds, all to get his hands on the Hedge fortune, that Tails and Sonic could scarcely bear to think what might be happening to their sister. The evening grew later and later, and the two siblings began to imagine more and more terrible things that could be happening to Amy while they lay helpless in the dormitory.

"Stintamcunu," Sonic whispered finally, and Tails nodded. They had to go and look for her.

The expression "quiet as mice" is a puzzling one, because mice can often be very noisy, so people who are being quiet as mice may in fact be squeaking and scrambling around. The expression "quiet as mimes" is more appropriate, because mimes are people who perform theatrical routines without making a sound. Mimes are annoying and embarrassing, but they are much quieter than mice, so "quiet as mimes" is a more proper way to describe how Tails and Sonic got up from their bunk, tiptoed across the dormitory, and walked out into the night.

There was a full moon that night, and the children gazed for a moment at the quiet courtyard. The moonlight made the dirt floor look as strange and eerie as the surface of the moon. Tails picked Sonic up, and the two of them crossed the courtyard toward the heavy wooden gate leading out of the lumbermill. The only sound was the soft shuffling of Tails' feet. The orphans could not remember when they had been in a place that felt so quiet and still, which is why the sudden creaking sound made them jump in surprise. The creaking sound was as noisy as mice, and seemed to be coming from straight ahead. Tails and Sonic stared out into the gloom, and with another creak the wooden gate swung open and revealed the short figure of a person, walking slowly toward them.

"Amy!" Sonic said, for one of the few regular words he used was the name of his sister. And to his relief, Tails saw that it was indeed Amy who was walking toward them. She had on a new pair of glasses that looked just like her old ones, except they were so new

that they shone in the moonlight. She gave her brothers a dazed and distant smile, as if they were people she did not know so well.

"Amy, we were so worried about you," Tails said, hugging his sister as he reached them. "You were gone for so long. Whatever happened to you?"

"I don't know," Amy said, so quietly that her brothers had to lean forward to hear her. "I can't remember."

"Did you see Count Eggman?" Tails asked. "Was Dr. Rouge Orwell working with him? Did they do anything to you?"

"I don't know," Amy said, shaking her head. "I remember breaking my glasses, and I remember Big taking me to the eye-shaped building. But I don't remember anything else. I scarcely remember where I am right now."

 _"Amy,"_ Tails said firmly, "you are at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill in Paltryville.

Surely you remember that."

Amy did not answer. She merely looked at her brothers with wide, wide eyes, as if they were an interesting aquarium or a parade.

"Amy?" Tails asked. "I said, _you are at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill."_

Amy still did not answer.

"She must be very tired," Tails said to Sonic. "Libu," Sonic said doubtfully.

"You'd better get to bed, Amy," Tails said. "Follow me."

At last, Amy spoke. "Yes, sir," she said, quietly.

 _"Sir?"_ Tails repeated. "I'm not a sir—I'm your brother!"

But Amy was silent once more, and Tails gave up. Still carrying Sonic, he walked back toward the dormitory, and Amy shuffled behind him. The moon shone on her new glasses, and her steps made little clouds of dirt, but she didn't say a word. Quiet as mimes, the Hedges walked back into the dormitory and tiptoed to their bunk bed. But when they reached it, Amy merely stood nearby and stared at her two siblings, as if she had forgotten how to go to bed.

"Lie down, Amy," Tails said gently.

"Yes, sir," Amy replied, and lay down on the bottom bunk, still staring at her brothers. Tails sat on the edge of the bunk and removed Amy's shoes, which she had forgotten to take off, but it seemed that she did not even notice.

"We'll discuss things in the morning," Tails whispered. "In the meantime, Amy, try to get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," Amy said, and immediately shut her eyes. In a second she was fast asleep.

Tails and Sonic watched the way her mouth quivered, just as it had always done when she was asleep, ever since she was a tiny baby. It was a relief to have Amy back with them, of course, but the Hedge brothers did not feel relieved, not one bit. They had never seen their sister act so strangely. For the rest of the night, Tails and Sonic huddled together on the top bunk, peering down and watching Amy sleep. No matter how much they looked at her, it still felt like their sister had not returned.

If you ever had a miserable experience, then you would probably have said to yourself that you would feel better in the morning. This is of course, is utter rubbish because a miserable experience remains a miserable experience even on the best of mornings. For instance if it was your birthday and a wart removal cream was your only gift you resived, someone might tell you to get a nice good night's rest sleep and wait until morning, but in the morning the tube of wart-removal cream would still be sitting there next to your uneaten birthday cake, and you would feel as miserable as ever. My chauffeur once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny

island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I'm sure you can understand, I didn't feel any better about it.

And so it was with the Hedge orphans. As soon as Foreman Flacutono began clanging his pots together, Amy opened her eyes and asked where in the world she was, Tails and Sonic did not feel better at all.

"What is wrong with you, Amy?" Tails asked.

Amy looked at Tails carefully, as if they had met once, years ago, and he had forgotten his name. "I don't know," she said. "I'm having trouble remembering things. What happened yesterday?"

"That's what we want to ask you, Amy,"

Tails said, but he was interrupted by their rude employer.

"Get up, you lazy midgets!" Foreman Flacutono shouted, walking over to the Hedge bunk and clanging his pots together again. "The Lucky Smells Lumbermill has no time for dawdling! Get out of bed this instant and go straight to work!"

Amy's eyes grew very wide, and he sat up in bed. In an instant she was walking toward the door of the dormitory, without a word to his sisters.

"That's the spirit!" Foreman Flacutono said, and clanged his pots together again. "Now everybody! On to the lumbermill!"

Tails and Sonic looked at one another and hurried to follow their sister and the other employees, but Tails took one step, and something made him stop. On the floor next to the Hedge bunk were Amy's shoes, which he had removed the night before. Amy had not even put them on before walking outside.

"Her shoes!" Tails said, picking them up. "Amy, you forgot your shoes!" He ran after her, but Amy did not even look back. By the time Tails reached the door, his sister was walking barefoot across the courtyard.

"Grummle?" Sonic called after her, but she did not answer. "Come on, children," Espio said. "Let's hurry to the lumbermill."

"Espio, there's something wrong with my sister," Tails said, watching Amy open the door of the lumbermill and lead the other employees inside. "She scarcely says a word to us, she doesn't seem to remember anything, and look! She didn't put on her shoes this morning!"

"Well, look on the bright side," Espio said. "We're supposed to finish tying today, and next we do the stamping. Stamping is the easiest part of the lumber business."

"I don't _care_ about the lumber business!" Tails cried. "Something is wrong with Amy!" "Let's not make trouble, Tails," Espio said, and walked off toward the lumbermill.

Tails and Sonic looked at one another helplessly. They had no choice but to follow Espio across the courtyard and into the mill. Inside, the string machine was already whirring, and the employees were beginning to tie up the last few batches of boards. Tails and Sonic hurried to get a place next to Amy, and for the next few hours they tied knots and tried to talk to their sister But it was difficult to speak to her over the whirring of the string machine and the clanging of Foreman Flacutono's pots, and Amy never answered them. Finally, the last pile of boards was tied together, and Espio turned off the string machine, and everybody received their gum. Tails and Sonic each grabbed one of Amy's arms and dragged their barefooted sister to a corner of the mill to talk to him.

"Amy, Amy, _please_ talk to me," Tails cried. "You're frightening us. You've got to tell us what Dr. Rouge Orwell did, so we can help you."

Amy simply stared at his sister with widened eyes.

"Eshan!" Sonic shrieked. Amy did not say a word. She did not even put her gum into her mouth. Tails and Sonic sat down beside her, confused and frightened, and put their arms around their sister as though they were afraid she was floating away. They sat there like that, a heap of Hedges, until Foreman Flacutono clanged his pots together to signal the end of the break.

"Stamping time!" Foreman Flacutono said, pushing his stringy white wig out of his eyes. "Everybody line up for stamping. And _you"_ he said, pointing to Amy. _"You,_ you lucky midget, will be operating the machine. Come over here so I can give you instructions."

"Yes, sir," Amy said, in a quiet voice, and her brothers gasped in surprise. It was the first time she had spoken since they were in the dormitory. Without another word she stood up, disentangled herself from her siblings, and walked toward Foreman Flacutono while her brothers looked on amazedly.

Tails turned to his baby brother and brushed a small scrap of string out of his hair, something his mother used to do all the time. The eldest Hedge remembered, as he had remembered so many times, the promise he had made to his parents when Sonic was born. "You are the eldest Hedge child," his parents had said. "And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don't get into trouble." Tails knew, of course, that his parents had never guessed, when they told him this, that the sort of trouble his siblings would get into would be so ostentatiously—a word which here means "really, really"— horrendous, but still he felt as if he had let her parents down. Amy was clearly in trouble, and Tails could not shake the feeling that it was his responsibility to get her out of it.

Foreman Flacutono whispered something _to_ Amy, who walked slowly over to the machine covered in smokestacks and began to operate its controls. Foreman Flacutono nodded to Amy and clanged his pots together again. "Let the stamping begin!" he said, in his terrible muffled voice. The Hedges had no idea what Foreman Flacutono meant by stamping, and thought maybe it involved jumping up and down on the boards for some reason, like stamping on ants. But it turned out to be more like stamping a library book. The workers would lift a bundle of boards and place it on a special mat, and the machine would bring its huge, flat stone down on top of the boards with a thunderous _stamp!,_ leaving a label in red ink that said "Lucky Smells Lumbermill." Then everyone had to blow on the stamp so

it dried quickly. Tails and Sonic couldn't help wondering if people who would make their houses out of these boards would mind having the name of the lumbermill written on the walls of their homes. But, more important, they couldn't help wondering how Amy knew how to work the stamping machine, and why Foreman Flacutono was having their sister at the controls, instead of Espio or one of the other employees.

"You see?" Espio told Tails and Sonic, from across a bundle of boards. "There's nothing wrong with Amy. She's working the machine perfectly. You spent all that time worrying for nothing."

 _Stamp!_

"Maybe," Tails said doubtfully, blowing on the M in "Lumbermill."

"And I told you that stamping was the easiest part of the lumbermill industry," Espio said.

 _Stamp!_ "Your lips get a little sore from all the blowing, but that's all."

"Wiro," Sonic said, which meant something like "That's true, but I'm still worried about Amy."

"That's the spirit," said Espio, misunderstanding him. "I told you that if you just looked on the bright side—"

 _Stam_ — _crash_ — _aah !_

Espio fell to the floor in midsentence, his face pale and sweaty. Of all the terrible noises to be heard at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, this one was the most terrible by far. The thunderous _stamp_ ing sound had been cut off by a wrenching crash and a piercing shriek. The stamping machine had gone horribly wrong, and the huge flat stone had not been brought down where it was supposed to be brought down, on the bundle of boards. Most of the stone had been brought down on the string machine, which was now hopelessly smashed. But part of it had been brought down on Espio's right leg.

Foreman Flacutono dropped his pots and ran over to the controls of the stamping machine, pushing the dazed Amy aside. With a flip of the switch he brought the stone up again, and everyone gathered around to see the damage. The cage part of the string machine was split open like an egg, and the string had become completely entwined and entangled. And I simply cannot describe the grotesque and unnerving sight—the words "grotesque" and "unnerving" here mean "twisted, tangled, stained, and gory"—of poor Espio's leg. It made Tails' and Sonic's stomachs turn to gaze upon it, but Espio looked up and gave them a weak smile.

"Well," he said, "this isn't too bad. My right leg is broken, but at least I'm left legged.

That's pretty fortunate."

"Gee," one of the other employees murmured. "I thought he'd say something more along the lines of 'Aaaaah! My leg! My leg!'"

"If someone could just help me get to my foot," Espio said, "I'm sure that I can get back to work."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tails said. "You need to go to a hospital."

"Yes, Espio," another worker said. "We have those coupons from last month, fifty percent off a cast at the Ahab Memorial Hospital . Two of us will chip in and get your leg all fixed up. I'll call for an ambulance right away."

Espio smiled. "That's very kind of you," he said.

"This is a disaster!" Foreman Flacutono shouted. "This is the worst accident in the history of the lumbermill!"

"No, no," Espio said. "It's fine. I've never liked my right leg so much, anyway."

"Not your leg, you overgrown midget," Foreman Flacutono said impatiently. "The string machine! Those cost an inordinate amount of money!"

"What does 'inordinate' mean?" somebody asked.

"It means many things," Amy said suddenly, blinking. "It can mean 'irregular.' It can mean 'immoderate.' It can mean 'disorderly.' But in the case of money, it is more likely to mean 'excessive.' Foreman Flacutono means that the string machine costs a lot of money."

The two Hedge brothers looked at one another and almost laughed in relief. "Amy!" Tails cried. "You're defining things!"

Amy looked at her brothers and gave them a sleepy smile. "I guess I am," she said.

"Nojeemoo!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "You appear to be back to normal," and he was right. Amy blinked again, and then looked at the mess she had caused.

"What happened here?" she asked, frowning. "Espio, what happened to your leg?"

"It's perfectly all right," Espio said, wincing in pain as he tried to move. "It's just a little sore."

"You mean you don't remember what happened?" Tails asked.

"What happened _when?"_ Amy asked, frowning. "Why, look! I'm not wearing any shoes!"

"Well, _I_ certainly remember what happened!" Foreman Flacutono shouted, pointing at Amy. "You smashed our machine! I will tell Sir about this right away! You've put a complete halt to the stamping process! Nobody will earn a single coupon today!"

"That's not fair!" Tails said. "It was an _accident._ And Amy never should have been put in charge of that machine! She didn't know how to use it!"

"Well, she'd better learn," Foreman Flacutono said. "Now pick up my pots, Amy!"

Amy went over to pick up the pots, but halfway there Foreman Flacutono stuck his foot out, playing the same trick he had played the previous day, and I'm sorry to tell you that it worked just as well. Again, Amy fell right to the ground of the lumbermill, and again, her glasses fell off her face and skittered over to the bundle of boards, and worst of all, once again they became all twisted and cracked and hopelessly broken, like my friend Tatiana's sculptures.

"My glasses!" Amy cried. "My glasses are broken again!"

Tails got a funny feeling in his stomach, all quivery and slithery as if he had eaten snakes, rather than gum, during the lunch break. "Are you sure?" he asked Amy. "Are you sure you can't wear them?"

"I'm sure," Amy said miserably, holding them up for Tails to see.

"Well, well, well," Foreman Flacutono said. "How careless of you. I guess you're due for another appointment with Dr. Rouge Orwell."

"We don't want to bother her," Tails said quickly. "If you give me some basic supplies, I'm sure I can build some glasses myself."

"No, no," the foreman said, his surgical mask curling into a frown. "You'd better leave optometry to the experts. Say good-bye to your sister."

"Oh, no," Tails said, desperately. He thought again of the promise he made to his parents. "We'll take her! Sonic and I will bring him to Dr. Rouge Orwell."

"Derix!" Sonic shrieked, which clearly meant something along the lines of "If we can't prevent her from going to Dr. Rouge Orwell, at least we can go with her!"

"Well, all right," said Foreman Flacutono, and his beady little eyes grew even darker than usual. "That's a good idea, come to think of it. Why don't all three of you go see Dr. Rouge Orwell?"

 _R_

Eight

 _The_ Hedge orphans stood outside the gates of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill and looked at an ambulance rushing past them as it took Espio to the hospital. They looked at the chewed- up gum letters of the lumbermill sign. And they looked down at the cracked pavement of Paltry-ville's street. In short, they looked everywhere but at the eye-shaped building.

"We don't have to go," Tails said. "We could run away. We could hide until the next train arrived, and take it as far as possible. We know how to work in a lumbermill now, so we could get jobs in some other town."

"But what if he found us?" Amy said, squinting at her brother. "Who would protect us from Count Eggman, if we were all by ourselves?"

"We could protect ourselves," Tails replied.

"How can we protect ourselves," Amy asked, "when one of us is a baby and another one can barely see?"

"We've protected ourselves before," Tails said.

"Just barely," Amy replied. "We've just barely escaped from Count Eggman each time. We can't run away and try to get along by ourselves, without glasses. We have to go see Dr. Rouge Orwell and hope for the best."

Sonic gave a little shriek of fear. Tails, of course, was too old to shriek except in emergency situations, but he was not too old to be frightened. "We don't know what will happen to us inside there," he said, looking at the black door in the eye's pupil.

 _"Think,_ Amy. Try to _think._ What happened to you when you went inside?"

"I don't know," Amy said miserably. "I remember trying to tell Big not to take me to the eye doctor, but he kept telling me that doctors were my friends, and not to be frightened."

"Ha!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Ha!"

"And then what do you remember?" Tails asked.

Amy closed her eyes in thought. "I wish I could tell you. But it's like that part of my brain has been wiped clean. It's like I was asleep from the moment I walked into that building until right there at the lumbermill."

"But you weren't asleep," Tails said. "You were walking around like a zombie. And then you caused that accident and hurt poor Espio."

"But I don't remember those things," Amy said. "It's as if I . . ." His voice trailed off and he stared into space for a moment.

"Amy?" Tails asked worriedly.

". . . It's as if I were hypnotized," Amy finished. She looked at Tails and then at Sonic, and her brothers could see that she was figuring something out. "Of course. Hypnosis would explain everything."

"I thought hypnosis was only in scary movies," Tails said.

"Oh, no," Amy answered. "I read the _Encyclopedia Hypnotica_ just last year. It described all these famous cases of hypnosis throughout history. There was an ancient Egyptian king who was hypnotized. All the hypnotist had to do was shout 'Ramses!' and the king would perform chicken imitations, even though he was in front of the royal court."

"That's very interesting," Tails said, "but—"

"A Chinese merchant who lived during the Ling Dynasty was hypnotized. All the hypnotist had to do was shout 'Mao!' and the merchant would play the violin, even though he had never seen one before."

"These are amazing stories," Tails said, "but—"

"A man who lived in England in the nineteen twenties was hypnotized. All the hypnotist had to do was shout 'Bloomsbury!' and he suddenly became a brilliant writer, even though he couldn't read."

"Mazee!" Sonic shrieked, which probably meant "We don't have time to hear all these stories, Amy!"

Amy grinned. "I'm sorry," she said, "but it was a very interesting book, and I'm so pleased that it's coming in handy."

"Well, what did the book say about how to stop yourself from being hypnotized?" Tails asked.

Amy's grin faded. "Nothing," she said.

"Nothing?" Tails repeated. "An entire encyclopedia about hypnosis said nothing about it at all?"

"If it did, I didn't read any of it. I thought the parts about the famous hypnosis cases were the most interesting, so I read those, but I skipped some of the boring parts."

For the first time since they had walked out of the gates of the lumbermill, the Hedge orphans looked at the eye-shaped building, and the building looked back at them. To Amy, of course, Dr. Rouge Orwell's office just looked like a big blur, but to her brothers it looked like trouble. The round door, painted black to resemble the pupil of the eye, looked like a deep and endless hole, and the children felt as if they were going to fall into it.

"I'm never skipping the boring parts of a book again," Amy said, and walked cautiously toward the building.

"You're not going inside?" Tails said incredulously, a word which here means "in a tone of voice to indicate Amy was being foolish."

"What else can we do?" Amy said quietly. She began to feel along the side of the building to find the door, and at this point in the story of the Hedge orphans, I would like to interrupt for a moment and answer a question I'm sure you are asking yourself. It is an important question, one which many, many people have asked many, many times, in many, many places all over the world. The Hedge orphans have asked it, of course. Mr. Silver Poe has asked it. I have asked it. My beloved Cream, before her untimely death, asked it, although she asked it too late. The question is: _Where is Count Eggman?_

If you have been following the story of these three orphans since the very beginning, then you know that Count Eggman is always lurking around these poor children, plotting and scheming to get his hands on the Hedge fortune. Within days of the orphans' arrival at a new place, Count Eggman and his nefarious assistants—the word "nefarious" here means "Hedge-hating"—are usually on the scene, sneaking around and committing dastardly deeds. And yet so far he has been nowhere to be found. So, as the three youngsters reluctantly head toward Dr. Rouge Orwell's office, I know you must be asking yourself where in the world this despicable villain can be. The answer is: _Very_ _nearby._

Tails and Sonic walked to the eye-shaped building and helped their sister up the steps to the door, but before they could open it, the pupil swung open to reveal a pearl white bat in a long white coat with a name tag reading "Dr. Orwell." Dr. Orwell was a tall bat with blond hair pulled back from her head and fashioned into a tight, tight bun. She had big black boots on her feet, and was holding a long black cane with a shiny red jewel on the top.

"Why hello, Amy," Dr. Rouge Orwell said, nodding formally at the Hedges. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon. Don't tell me you broke your glasses again."

"Unfortunately, yes," Amy said.

"That's too bad," Dr. Rouge Orwell said. "But you're in luck. We have very few appointments today, so come on in and I'll do all the necessary tests."

The Hedge orphans looked at one another nervously. This wasn't what they had expected at all. They expected Dr. Rouge Orwell to be a much more sinister figure—Count Eggman in disguise, for instance, or one of his terrifying associates. They expected that they would be snatched inside the eye-shaped building, and perhaps never return. Instead Dr. Rouge Orwell was a professional-looking woman who was politely inviting them inside.

"Come on," she said, showing the way with her black cane. "Shirley, my receptionist, made some cookies that you boys can eat in the waiting room while I make Amy's glasses. It won't take nearly as long as it did yesterday."

"Will Amy be hypnotized?" Tails demanded.

"Hypnotized?" Dr. Rouge Orwell repeated, smiling. "Goodness, no. Hypnosis is only in scary movies."

The children, of course, knew this was not true, but they figured if Dr. Rouge Orwell thought it was true then she probably wasn't a hypnotist. Cautiously, they stepped inside the eye-shaped building and followed Dr. Rouge Orwell down a hallway decorated with medical certificates.

"This way to the office," she said. "Amy tells me she's quite a reader. Do you two read as well?"

"Oh yes," Tails said. He was beginning to relax. "We read whenever we can."

"Have you ever encountered," Dr. Rouge Orwell said, "in your reading, the expression 'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'?"

"Tuzmo," Sonic replied, which meant something along the lines of "I don't believe so."

"I haven't read too many books about flies," Tails admitted.

"Well, the expression doesn't really have to do with flies," Dr. Rouge Orwell explained. "It's just a fancy way of saying that you're more likely to get what you want by acting in a sweet way, like honey, rather than in a distasteful way, like vinegar."

"That's interesting," Amy said, wondering why Dr. Rouge Orwell was bringing it up. "But you can catch more flies with manure."

"I suppose you're wondering why I'm bringing it up," Dr. Rouge Orwell said, acting as if she didn't hear Amy, pausing in front of a door marked 'Waiting Room'. "But I think all will be clear to you in just a moment. Now, Amy, follow me to the office, and you boys can wait in the waiting room through this door."

The children hesitated.

"It will just be a few moments," Dr. Rouge Orwell said, and patted Sonic on the head.

"Well, all right," Tails said, and gave his sister a wave as she followed the optometrist farther down the hallway. Tails and Sonic gave the door a push and went inside the waiting room, and saw in an instant that Dr. Rouge Orwell was right. All was clear to them in a moment. The waiting room was a small one, and it looked like most waiting rooms. It had a sofa and a few chairs and a small table with old magazines and books stacked on it, and a receptionist sitting at a desk, just like waiting rooms that you or I have been in. But when Tails and Sonic looked at the receptionist, they saw something that I hope you have never seen in a waiting room. A nameplate on the desk read "Shirley," but this was no Shirley, even though the receptionist was wearing a palebrown dress and sensible beige shoes. For above the pale lipstick on Shirley's face, the dyed yellow quills, and below the blond wig on Shirley's head, was a pair of shiny, shiny eyes that the two children recognized at once. Dr. Rouge Orwell, in behaving politely, had been the honey, instead of the vinegar. The children, unfortunately, were the flies. And Count Eggman, sitting at the receptionist's desk with an evil smile, had caught them at last.

Oftentimes when children are in trouble , you will hear people say that it is all because of low self esteem . 'low self esteem'is a phrase which here describes children who don't think much themselves. They might think that they are ugly, or boring or unable to do anything correctly, or a combination of these things, and whether they are right or not, you can see why those sorts of feelings might lead one into trouble. In the vast majority of cases, however, getting into trouble has nothing to do with one's self-esteem. It usually has

much more to do with whatever is causing the trouble—a monster, a bus driver, a banana peel, killer bees, the school principal—than what you think of yourself.

And so it was as Tails and Sonic Hedge stared at Count Eggman—or, as the nameplate on his desk said, Shirley. Tails and Sonic had a very healthy amount of self-esteem. Tails knew he could do things correctly, because he had invented many devices that worked perfectly. Sonic knew he wasn't boring, because his siblings always took an interest in what he had to say. And both Hedge brothers knew that they weren't ugly, because they could see their pleasant facial features reflected back at them, in the middle of Count Eggman's shiny, shiny eyes. But it did not matter that they thought these things, because they were trapped.

"Why, hello there, little boys," Count Eggman said in a ridiculously high voice, as if he were really a receptionist named Shirley instead of an evil man after the Hedge fortune. "What are your names?"

"You _know_ our names," Tails said curtly, a word which here means "tired of Count Eggman's nonsense." "That wig and that lipstick don't fool us any more than your palebrown dress and sensible beige shoes. You're Count Eggman."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," Count Eggman said. "I'm Shirley. See this nameplate?"

"Fiti!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "That nameplate doesn't prove anything, of course!" "Sonic's right," Tails said. "You're not Shirley just because you have a small piece of

wood with your name on it."

"I'll tell you why I'm Shirley," Count Eggman said. "I'm Shirley because I would like to be called Shirley, and it is impolite not to do so."

"I don't care if we're impolite," Tails said, "to such a disgusting person as yourself."

Count Eggman shook his head. "But if you do something impolite to _me"_ he said, "then _I_ might do something impolite to _you,_ like for instance tearing your hair out with my bare hands."

Tails and Sonic looked at Count Eggman's hands. They noticed for the first time that he had grown his fingernails very long, and painted them bright pink as part of his disguise. The Hedge sisters looked at one another. Count Eggman's nails looked very sharp indeed.

"O.K., _Shirley,"_ Tails said. "You've been lurking around Paltryville since we arrived, haven't you?"

Shirley lifted a hand to pat her wig into place. "Maybe," she said, still in her foolish high voice.

"And you've been hiding out in the eye-shaped building this whole time, haven't you?" Tails said.

Shirley batted her eyes, and Tails and Sonic noticed that beneath her one long eyebrow— another identifying mark of Count Eggman—she was wearing long false eyelashes. "Perhaps," she said.

"And you're in cahoots with Dr. Rouge Orwell!" Tails said, using a phrase which here means "working with, in order to capture the Hedge fortune." "Aren't you?"

"Possibly," Shirley said, crossing her legs and revealing long white stockings imprinted with the pattern of an eye.

"Popinsh!" Sonic shrieked.

"Sonic means," Tails said, "that Dr. Rouge Orwell hypnotized Amy and caused that terrible accident, didn't she?"

"Conceivably," Shirley said.

"And she's being hypnotized again, right now, isn't he?" Tails asked. "It's within the bounds of the imagination," Shirley said.

Tails and Sonic looked at one another, their hearts pounding. Tails took his brother's hand and took a step backward, toward the door. "And now," he said, "you're going to try to whisk us away, aren't you?"

"Of course not," Shirley said. "I'm going to offer you a cookie, like a good little receptionist."

"You're not a receptionist!" Tails cried.

"I certainly am," Shirley said. "I'm a poor receptionist who lives all by herself, and who wants very much to raise children of her own. Three children, in fact: a smartypants little boy, a hypnotized little girl, and a buck-toothed baby."

"Well, you can't raise us," Tails said. "We're already being raised by Sir."

"Oh, he'll hand you over to me soon enough," Shirley said, her eyes shining brightly. "Don't be ab—" Tails said, but he stopped herself before she could say "surd." He

wanted to say "surd." He wanted to say "Sir wouldn't do a thing like that," but inside he

wasn't so sure. Sir had already made the three Hedges sleep in one small bunk bed. He had already made them work in a lumbermill. And he had already only fed them gum for lunch. And as much as she wanted to believe that it was absurd to think that he would simply hand the Hedge orphans over to Shirley, Tails was not certain. He was only half sure, and so he stopped herself after half a word.

"Ab?" said a voice behind him. "What in the world does the word 'ab' mean?"

Tails and Sonic turned around and saw Dr. Rouge Orwell leading Amy into the waiting room.

She was wearing another new pair of glasses and was looking confused.

"Amy!" Tails cried. "We were so worried ab—" He stopped herself before he could say "out" when he saw his sister's expression. It was the same expression she'd had the previous night, when she finally came back from his first appointment with Dr. Rouge Orwell. Behind her newest pair of glasses, Amy had wide, wide eyes, and a dazed and distant smile, as if her brothers were people she did not know so well.

"There you go again, with 'ab,'" Dr. Rouge Orwell said. "Whatever in the world does it mean?" "'Ab' isn't a word, of course," Shirley said. "Only a stupid person would say a word like

'ab.'"

"They are stupid, aren't they?" Dr. Rouge Orwell agreed, as though they were talking about the weather instead of insulting young children. "They must have very low self-esteem."

"I couldn't agree more, Dr. Rouge Orwell," Shirley said.

"Call me Rouge," the horrible optometrist replied, winking. "Now, boys, here is your sister. He's a little tired after her appointment, but she'll be fine by tomorrow morning. More than fine, in fact. _Much_ more." She turned and pointed at the door with her jeweled cane. "I believe you three know the way out."

"I don't," Amy said faintly. "I can't remember coming in here."

"That often happens after optometry appointments," Dr. Rouge Orwell said smoothly. "Now run along, orphans."

Tails took his sister by the hand and began to lead him out of the waiting room. "We're really free to go?" he asked, not believing it for a moment.

"Of course," Dr. Rouge Orwell said. "But I'm sure my receptionist and I will see you soon. After all, Amy seems to have gotten very clumsy lately. She's always causing accidents."

"Roopish!" Sonic shrieked. He probably meant "They're not accidents! They're the results of hypnotism!" but the adults paid no attention. Dr. Rouge Orwell merely stepped out of the doorway and Shirley wiggled her pink fingers at them in a scrawny wave.

"Toodle-oo, orphans!" Shirley said. Amy looked at Shirley and waved back as Tails and Sonic led him by the hand out of the waiting room.

"How could you wave to her?" Tails hissed to his sister, as they walked back down the hallway.

"She seems like a nice lady," Amy said, frowning. "I know I've met her somewhere before."

"Ballywot!" Sonic shrieked, which undoubtedly meant "She's Count Eggman in disguise!" "If you say so," Amy said vaguely.

"Oh, Amy," Tails said miserably. "Sonic and I wasted time arguing with Shirley when we should have been rescuing you. You've been hypnotized again; I know it. Try to concentrate, Amy. Try to remember what happened."

"I broke my glasses," Amy said slowly, "and then we left the lumbermill . . . . I'm very tired, Thomas. Can I go to bed?"

 _"Tails,_ " Tails said. "My name is _Tails,_ not Thomas."

"I'm sorry," Amy said. "I'm just so tired." Amy opened the door of the building, and the three orphans stepped out onto the depressing street of Paltryville. Tails and Sonic, stopped and remembered when they had first reached the lumbermill after getting off the train, and had seen the eye-shaped building.

Their instincts had told them that the building was trouble, but the children had not listened to their instincts. They had listened to Mr. Silver Poe.

"We'd better take him to the dormitory," Tails said to Sonic. "I don't know what else we can do with Amy in this state. Then we should tell Sir what has happened. I hope he can help us."

"Guree," Sonic agreed glumly. The brothers led their sister through the wooden gates of the mill, and across the dirt-floored courtyard to the dormitory. It was almost suppertime, and when the children walked inside they could see the other employees sitting on their bunks and talking quietly among themselves.

"I see you're back," one of the workers said. "I'm surprised you can show your faces around here, after what you did to Espio."

"Oh, come now," Espio said, and the orphans turned to see him lying down on his bunk with his leg in a cast. "Amy didn't mean to do it, did you, Amy ?"

"Mean to do what?" Amy asked quizzically, a word which here means "because she didn't know that she caused the accident that hurt Espio's leg."

"Our sister is very tired," Tails said quickly. "How are you feeling, Espio?"

"Oh, perfectly fine," Espio said. "My leg hurts, but nothing else does. I'm really quite fortunate. But enough about me. There's a memo that was left for you. Foreman Flacutono said it was very important."

Espio handed Tails an envelope with the word "Hedges" typed on the front, just like the typed note of welcome the children had found on their first day at the mill. Inside the envelope was a note, which read as follows:

Memorandum

 _ **To:**_ The Hedge Orphans

 _ **From:**_ _S_ ir

 _ **Subject:**_ Today's Accident

I have been informed that you caused an accident this morning at the mill that injured an employee and disrupted the day's work. Accidents are caused by bad workers, and bad workers are not tolerated at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. If you continue to cause accidents I will be forced to fire you and send you to live elsewhere. I have located a nice young lady who lives in town who would be happy to adopt three young children. Her name is Shirley and she works as a receptionist. If the three of you continue to be bad workers, I will place you under her care.

 _Tails_ read the memo out loud to his siblings, and he didn't know whose reaction was more upsetting. As Sonic heard the bad news, he bit his lip in worry. His tooth was so sharp that tiny drops of blood dribbled down his chin, and this was certainly upsetting. But Amy didn't seem to hear the memo at all. She just stared into space, and this was worrisome as well. Tails put the memo back into the envelope, sat on the bottom bunk, and wondered what in the world he could do.

"Bad news?" Espio said sympathetically. "Remember, sometimes something might seem like bad news, but it could turn out to be a blessing in disguise."

Tails tried to smile at Espio, but his smiling muscles just stayed put. He knew—or he thought he knew, anyway, because he was actually wrong—that the only thing in disguise was Count Eggman "We have to go see Sir," Tails said finally. "We have to explain to him what has happened."

"You're not supposed to see Sir without an appointment," Espio said.

"This is an emergency," Tails said. "Come on, Sonic. Come on . . ." He looked at his sister, who looked back at her older brother with wide, wide eyes. Tails remembered the accident she had caused, and all the previous Hedge guardians who had been destroyed. He could not imagine that Amy would be capable of the sort of heinous murders that Count Eggman had committed, but he could not be sure. Not when she was hypnotized.

"Dinel," Sonic said.

"Amy simply cannot go," Tails decided. "Espio, will you please keep an eye on our sister while we go and visit Sir?" "Of course," Espio said. "A _very close eye,"_ he emphasized, leading Amy to the Hedge bunk. "He's . .. he's not been himself lately, as I'm sure you've noticed. Please make sure he stays out of trouble." "I will," Espio promised. "Now, Amy," Tails said, "please get some sleep, and I hope you'll feel better in the morning."

"Wub," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "I hope so, too."

Amy lay down on the bunk, and her brothers looked at her bare feet, which were filthy from walking around all day without any shoes on. "Good night, Tails," Amy said. "Good night, Sammy."

"His name is _Sonic,"_ Tails said.

"I'm sorry," Amy said. "I'm just so exhausted. Do you really think I will feel better in the morning?"

"If we're lucky," Tails aid. "Now, go to sleep."

Amy glanced at her older brother. "Yes, sir," she said, quietly. She shut her eyes and immediately fell asleep. The eldest Hedge tucked the blanket around his sister and took a long, worried glance at her. Then he took Sonic's hand and, with a smile to Espio, walked back out of the dormitory and across the courtyard to the offices. Inside, the two Hedges walked past the mirror without even a glance at their reflections, and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" The children recognized the booming voice of Sir, and nervously opened the door to the office. Sir was sitting at an enormous desk made of dark, dark wood, still smoking a cigar so his face could not be seen behind the cloud of smoke. The desk was covered with papers and folders, and there was a name-plate that read "The Boss" in letters made of chewed-up gum, just like the lumbermill sign outside. It was difficult to see the rest of the room, because there was only one tiny light in the room, which sat on Sir's desk. Next to Sir stood Big, who gave the children a shy smile as they walked up to their guardian.

"Do you have an appointment?" Sir asked.

"No," Tails said, "but it's very important that I talk to you."

"I'll decide what's very important!" Sir barked. "You see this nameplate? It says 'The Boss,' and that's who I am! It's very important when _I_ say it's very important, understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Tails said, "but I think you'll agree with me when I explain what's been going on."

"I _know_ what's been going on," Sir said. "I'm the boss! Of course I know! Didn't you get my memo about the accident?"

Tails took a deep breath and looked Sir in the eye, or at least the part of the cloud of smoke where he thought his eye probably was. "The accident," he said finally, "happened because Amy was hypnotized."

"What your sister does for a hobby is none of my concern," Sir said, "and it doesn't excuse accidents."

"You don't understand, Sir," Tails said. "Amy was hypnotized by Dr. Rouge Orwell, who is in cahoots with Count Eggman."

"Oh no!" Big said. "You poor children! Sir, we have to put a stop to this!"

"We _are_ putting a stop to this!" Sir said. "You children will cause no more accidents, and you'll be safely employed by this lumbermill. Otherwise, out you go!"

"Sir!" Big cried. "You wouldn't throw the children out into the street!"

"Of course not," Sir said. "As I explained in my memo, I met a very nice young lady who works as a receptionist. When I mentioned there were three children in my care, she said that if you were ever any trouble, she'd take you, because she'd always wanted children of her own."

"Palsh!" Sonic cried.

"That's Count Eggman!" Tails cried.

"Do I look like an idiot to you?" Sir asked, pointing to his cloud. "I have a complete description of Count Eggman from Mr. Silver Poe, and this receptionist looked nothing like him. She was a very nice lady."

"Did you look for the tattoo?" Big asked. "Count Eggman has a tattoo on his ankle, remember?"

"Of course I didn't look for the tattoo," Sir said impatiently. "It's not polite to look at a woman's legs."

"But she's not a woman!" Tails burst out. "I mean, _he's_ not a woman! He's Count Eggman!"

"I saw her nameplate," Sir said. "It didn't say 'Count Eggman.' It said 'Shirley.'"

"Fiti!" Sonic shrieked, which you already know meant "That nameplate doesn't prove anything, of course!" But Tails did not have time to translate, because Sir was pounding his hands on the desk.

"Hypnosis! Count Eggman! Fiti! I've had enough of your excuses!" he yelled. "Your job is to work hard at the lumbermill, not cause accidents! I am busy enough without having to deal with clumsy children!"

Quickly, Tails thought of something else. "Well, can we call Mr. Silver Poe?" he asked. "He knows all about Count Eggman, so perhaps he can be helpful." Tails did not add that Mr. Silver Poe was not usually a very helpful person, but yet he did say he will belive them if he does show up.

"You want to add the cost of a long-distance phone call to the burden of caring for you?" Sir asked. "I think not. Let me put it to you in the simplest way I can: If you screw up again, I will give you away to Shirley."

"Now, Sir," Big said. "These are children. You shouldn't talk to them this way. As you remember, I never thought it was a good idea for the Hedges to work in the mill. They should be treated like members of the family."

"They _are_ being treated like members of the family," Sir said. "Many of my cousins live there in the dormitory. I refuse to argue with you, Big! You're my partner! Your job is to iron my shirts and cook my omelettes, not boss me around!"

"You're right, of course," Big said softly. "I'm sorry."

"Now get out of here, all of you!" Sir barked. "I have lots of work to do!"

Sonic opened his mouth to say something, but he knew it would be useless. Tails thought of something else she could point out, but he knew it would be worthless. And Big started to raise his hand to make a point, but he knew it would be bootless, a word which here means "useless and worthless." So Big and the two Hedges left the dark office without another word, and stood for a moment together in the hallway.

"Don't worry," Big whispered. "I'll help you."

"How?" Tails whispered back. "Will you call Mr. Silver Poe and tell him Count Eggman is here?"

"Ulo?" Sonic asked, which meant "Will you have Dr. Rouge Orwell arrested?"

"Will you hide us from Shirley?" Tails asked.

"Henipul?" Sonic asked, which meant "Will you undo Amy's hypnotism?"

"No," Big admitted. "I can't do any of those things. Sir would get mad at me, and we can't have that. But tomorrow, I will try and sneak you some raisins at lunchtime. O.K.?"

It was not O.K., of course, not at all. Raisins are healthy, and they are inexpensive, and some people may even find them delicious. But they are rarely considered helpful. In fact, raisins were one of the least helpful things Big could offer, if he really wanted to help. But Tails didn't answer him. He was looking down the hallway and thinking. Sonic didn't answer him either, because he was already crawling toward the door to the library. The Hedge brothers had no time to talk with Big. They had to figure out a plan, and they had to figure it out quickly. The Hedge orphans were in a very difficult situation, and they needed every available moment to come up with something much, much more helpful than raisins.

 _R_

Eleven

As we have discussed previously, a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story the book contains. This book, you will remember, began with the sentence "The Hedge orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest , wondering if their lives would ever get any better," and the story has certainly been as wretched and hopeless as the first sentence promised it would be. I

only bring this up now so you can understand the feeling of dread that Tails and Sonic Hedgee experienced as they opened a book in the library of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. The two Hedge brothers already had a feeling of dread, of course. Part of the dread came from how cruelly unfairly Sir had behaved. Another part of the dread came from how Big, kind as he was, seemed unable to help them. Yet another part of the dread came from the fact that Amy had been hypnotized once more. And of course, the lion's share of the dread—the phrase "lion's share" here means "the biggest part" and has nothing to do with lions or sharing—came from the fact that Count Eggman—or, as he insisted on calling himself, Shirley—was back in the Hedges' lives and causing so much misery.

But there was an extra helping of dread that Tails and Sonic felt when they began _Advanced Ocular Science,_ by Dr. Rouge Orwell. The first sentence was "This tome will endeavor to scrutinize, in quasi-inclusive breadth, the epistemology of ophthalmologically contrived appraisals of ocular systems and the subsequent and requisite exertions imperative for expugna-tion of injurious states," and as Tails read it out loud to his brother, both children felt the dread that comes when you begin a very boring and difficult book.

"Oh dear," Tails said, wondering what in the world "tome" meant. "This is a very difficult book."

"Garj!" Sonic said, wondering what in the world "endeavor" meant.

"If only we had a dictionary," Tails said glumly. "Then we might be able to figure out what this sentence means."

"Yash!" Sonic pointed out, which meant something like "And if only Amy weren't hypnotized, then she could _tell_ us what this sentence means."

Tails and Sonic sighed, and thought of their poor hypnotized sister. Amy seemed so different from the sister they knew that it was almost as if Count Eggman had already succeeded with his dastardly scheme, and destroyed one of the Hedge orphans. Amy usually looked interested in the world around her, and now she had a blank expression on his face. Her eyes were usually all squinty from reading, and now they were wide as if she had been watching TV instead. She was usually alert, and full of interesting things to say, and now she was forgetful, and almost completely silent.

"Who knows if Amy could define these words for us?" Tails asked. "She said it felt like part of her brain had been wiped clean. Maybe she doesn't know all those words when she's hypnotized. I don't think I've heard him define anything since the accident with Espio, when she explained the word 'inordinate.' You might as well get some rest, Sonic. I'll wake you up if I read anything useful."

Sonic crawled up on the table and lay down next to _Advanced Ocular Science,_ which was almost as big as he was. Tails gazed at his brother for a moment, and then turned his attention to the book. Tails liked to read, of course, but at heart he was an inventor, not a researcher, and he prefrend fiction books over non. He simply did not have Amy's amazing reading skills. Tails stared at Dr. Rouge Orwell's first sentence again, and just saw a mess of difficult words. He knew that if Amy were in the library, and not hypnotized, she would see a way to help them out of their situation. Tails began to imagine how his sister would go about reading _Advanced Ocular Science,_ and tried to copy his methods.

First he turned back the pages of the book, back before even the first page, to the table of contents, which as I'm sure you know is a list of the titles and page numbers of each chapter in a book. Tails had paid scarcely any attention to it when he first opened the book, but he realized that Amy would probably examine the table of contents first, so she could see which chapters of the book might be most helpful. Quickly he scanned the table of contents:

Introduction – 1

1 Basic Ophthalmology – 147

2 Blindness – 292

3 Nearsightedness and Farsightedness – 394

4 Itchy eyelashes – 449

5 Damaged Pupils – 555

6 Blinking problems – 618

7 Winking problems – 867

8 Eyelash problems – 900

9 Surgical Practices – 992

10 Glasses, Monocles and contact lenses – 1,147

11 Sunglasses - 1,596

12 Laser eye surgery – 1,612

13 Eye Cancer - 1,800

14 Hypnosis and mind control – 1992

15 Which eye colour is the best one? – 2017

Summery - 2047

Immediately, of course, Tails saw that chapter fourteen would be the most helpful, and was glad he'd thought of looking at the table of contents instead of reading 1992 pages until he found something helpful. Grateful that he could skip that daunting first paragraph—the word "daunting" here means "full of incredibly difficult words"—he flipped through _Advanced Ocular Science_ until she reached "Hypnosis and Mind Control."

The phrase "stylistic consistency" is used to describe books that are similar from start to finish. For instance, the book you are reading right now has stylistic consistency, because it began in a miserable way and will continue that way until the last page. I'm sorry to say that Tails realized, as he began chapter fourteen, that Dr. Rouge Orwell's book had stylistic consistency as well. The first sentence of "Hypnosis and Mind Control" was "Hypnosis is an efficacious yet precarious methodology and should not be assayed by neophytes," and it was every bit as difficult and boring as the first sentence of the whole book. Tails reread the sentence, and then reread it again, and his heart began to sink. How in the world did Amy do it? When the three children lived in the Hedge home, there was a huge dictionary, much larger than Dr, Rouge Orwell's book in their parents' library, and Amy would often use it to help her with difficult books. But how did Amy read difficult books when there was no dictionary to be found? It was a puzzle, and Tails knew it was a puzzle he had to solve quickly. He wished he had Amy's dictionary with him, as it had helped him when they lived with Count Eggman, but they had left it at Count Eggman's house, and he was discombobulated, a word which here means, 'very confused on reading an advanced ocular science book without the help of a dictonary'

He turned his attention back to the book, and reread the sentence one more time, but this time he simply skipped the words she did not know. As often happens when one reads in this way, Tails' brain made a little humming noise as he encountered each word—or each part of a word—he did not know. So inside his head, the opening sentence of chapter fourteen read as follows: '"Hypnosis is an _hmmm_ yet _hmmm_ method _hmmm_ and should not be _hmmmed_ by _hmmm_ s _,_ '" and although he could not tell exactly what it meant, he could guess. "It could mean," he guessed to himself, "that hypnosis is a difficult method and should not be learned by amateurs," and the interesting thing is that he was not too far off. The night grew later and later, and Tails continued to read the chapter in this way, and he was surprised to learn that he could guess his way through pages and pages of Dr. Rouge Orwell's book. This is not the best way to read, of course, because you can make horribly wrong guesses, but it will do in an emergency.

For several hours, the Lucky Smells library was completely quiet except for the turning of pages, as Tails read the book searching for anything helpful. Every so often he glanced at his brother, and for the first time in his life Tails wished that Sonic were older than he was. When you are trying to figure out a difficult problem—such as the problem of trying to get your sister unhypnotized so as not to be placed into the hands of a greedy man disguised as a receptionist—it is often helpful to discuss the problem with other people in order to come up with a quick and useful solution. Tails remembered that, when the Hedges were living with Aunt Sticks, it had been extremely helpful to talk to Amy about a note that turned out to have a secret hidden within it. Or when they live with Count Eggman, both he and Amy tried to find out what Count Eggman was up to, and even though it was Tails who confronted Count Eggman, Amy figured out what he was up to first. But with Sonic it was different. The youngest Hedge was charming, and well toothed, an athlete, and quite intelligent for a baby. But he was still a baby, and as Tails _hmm_ ed through chapter fourteen, he worried that he would fail to find a solution with only a baby as a discussion partner. Nevertheless, when he found a sentence that appeared to be useful, he gave Sonic a waking nudge and read the sentence out loud.

"Listen to this, Sonic," he said, when his brother opened his eyes. '"Once a subject has been hypnotized, a simple _hmmm_ word will make him or her perform whatever _hmmm_ acts any _hmmm_ wants _hmmm_ ed.'"

 _"Hmmm?"_ Sonic asked.

"Those are the words I don't know," Tails explained. "It's difficult to read this way, but I can guess what Dr. Rouge Orwell means. I think she means that once you've hypnotized someone, all you need to do is say a certain word and they will obey you. Remember what Amy told us she learned from the _Encyclopedia Hypnotical_ There was that Egyptian king who did chicken imitations, and the merchant who played the violin, and that writer, and all the hypnotists did was say a certain word. But they were all different words. I wonder which word applies to Amy."

"Heece," Sonic said, which probably meant something like "Beats me. I'm only a baby."

Tails gave him a gentle smile and tried to imagine what Amy would have said if she had been there, unhypnotized, in the library with her brothers. "I'll search for more information," he decided.

"Brewol," Sonic said, which meant "And I'll go back to sleep."

Both Hedges were true to their word, and for a time the library was silent again. Tails _hmmm_ ed through the book and grew more and more exhausted and worried. There were only a few hours left until the working day began, and he was scared that her efforts would be as ineffectual—the word "ineffectual" here means "unable to get Amy unhypnotized"—as if he had low self-esteem. But just as he was about to fall asleep beside his brother, he found a passage in the book that seemed so useful he read it out loud immediately, waking Sonic up in the process.

"'In order to _hmmm_ the hypnotic hold on the _hmmm,'"_ Tails said, '"the same method _hmmm_ is used: a _hmmm_ word, uttered out loud, will _hmmm_ the _hmmm_ immediately.' I think Dr. Rouge Orwell is talking about getting people un-hypnotized, and it has to do with another word being uttered out loud. If we figure _that one,_ out, we can unhypnotize Amy, and we won't fall into Shirley's clutches."

"Skel," Sonic said, rubbing his eyes. He probably meant something like "But I wonder what that word could be."

"I don't know," Tails said, "but we'd better figure it out before it's too late."

"Hmmm," Sonic said, making a humming noise because he was thinking, rather than because he was reading a word he did not know. "Hmmm," Tails said, which meant _he_ was thinking, too. But then there was another _hmmm_ that made the two Hedge brothers look at one another in worry. This was not the _hmmm_ of a brain that did not know what a word meant, or the _hmmm_ of a person thinking. This _hmmm_ was much longer and louder, and it was a _hmmm_ that made the Hedge brothers stop their thinking and hurry out of the library, clutching Dr. Rouge Orwell's book in their trembling hands. It was the _hmmm_ of the lumbermill's saw. Somebody had turned on the mill's deadliest machine in the early, early hours of morning.

Tails and Sonic hurried across the courtyard, which was quite dark in the first few rays of the sun. Hurriedly they opened the doors of the mill and looked inside. Foreman Flacutono was standing near the entrance, with his back to the two boys, pointing a finger and giving an order. The rusty sawing machine was whirring away, making that dreadful humming sound, and there was a log on the ground, all ready to be pushed into the saw. The log seemed to be covered in layers and layers of string—the string that had been inside the string machine, before Amy had smashed it.

The two boys took a better look, stepping farther into the mill, and saw that the string was wrapped around something else, tying a large bundle to the log. And when they took an even better look, peeking from behind Foreman Flacutono, they saw that the bundle was Big. He was tied to the log with so much string that he looked a bit like a cocoon, except that a cocoon had never looked this frightened. Layers of string were covering his mouth, so he could not make a sound, but his eyes were uncovered and he was staring in terror at the saw as it drew closer and closer.

"Yes, you little twerp," Foreman Flacutono was saying. "You've been fortunate so far, avoiding my boss's clutches, but no more. One more accident and you'll be ours, and this will be the worst accident the lumbermill has ever seen. Just imagine Sir's displeasure when he learns that his partner has been sliced into cat boards. Now, you lucky girl, go and push the log into the saw!"

Tails and Sonic took a few more steps forward, near enough that they could reach out and touch Foreman Flacutono—not that they wanted to do such a disgusting thing, of course— and saw their sister, Amy was standing at the controls of the sawing machine in her bare feet, staring at the foreman with his wide, blank eyes.

"Yes, sir," she said, and Big's eyes grew wide with panic.

" _Amy!_ " Tails cried "Amy don't do it!"

Foreman Flacutono wipped around, his beady eyes glaring from over his surgical mask. "Why, if it isn't the other two." He said. "You're just in time to see the accident."

"It's not an accident" Tails said "Your doing it on purpose!"

"Let's not split hairs," Foreman Flacutono said, a phrase which here means 'argue over something unimportant'

"You've been in on this all the time!" Tails shouted. "You're in cahoots with Dr. Rouge Orwell, and Shirley!"

"So what?" Foreman Flacutono said. "Deluny!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "You're not just a bad foreman—you're an evil person!"

"I don't know what you mean, little midget," Foreman Flacutono said, "and I don't care.

Amy, you lucky girl, please continue." "No, Amy!" Tails shouted. "No!"

"Kewtu!" Sonic shrieked. "Your words will do no good," Foreman Flacutono said. "See?"

Sonic saw, all right, as he watched his barefoot sister walking over to the log as if her brothers had not spoken. But Tails was not looking at his sister. He was looking at Foreman Flacutono, and thinking of everything he had said. The terrible foreman was right, of course. The words of the two unhypnotized Hedges would do no good. But Tails knew that some words would help. The book she was holding had told him, in between _hmmm_ s, that there was a word that was used to command Amy, and a word that would unhypnotize her. The eldest Hedge realized that Foreman Flacutono must have used the command word just now, and he was trying to remember everything that he had said. He'd called Amy a twerp, but it seemed unlikely that "twerp" would be the word. He'd said "log" and he'd said "push," but those didn't seem likely either. She realized with despair that the command word could almost be anything.

"That's right," Foreman Flacutono said, as Amy reached the log. "Now, in the name of Lucky Smells Lumbermill, push the log in the path of the saw."

Tails closed his eyes and racked his brain, a phrase which here means "tried to think of other times the command word must have been used." Foreman Flacutono must have used it when Amy caused the first accident, the one that broke Espio's leg. _"You,_ you lucky midget," Tails remembered the foreman had said, "will be operating the machine," and Amy had said "Yes, sir" in that faint, hypnotized voice, the same voice she had used before she had gone to sleep just the previous night.

"Egu!" Sonic shrieked in fear, as the _hmmm_ of the saw grew louder and rougher. Amy had pushed the log up to the saw, and Big's eyes grew even wider as the blade began to slice the wood, getting closer and closer to where Big was tied up. As she remembered Amy's "Yes, sir," before she went to sleep, Tails realized he must have used the command word himself, by accident. He racked his brain again, straining to remember the conversation. Amy had called her baby brother Sammy, instead of Sonic, and then asked if she would really feel better in the morning. But what had Tails replied?

"Keep pushing, you lucky midget," Foreman Flacutono said, and Tails knew in an instant. _Lucky._

 _"Lucky!"_ the eldest Hedge shouted, not bothering to hide the word in a sentence, as the foreman did. "Push the log away from the saw, Amy!"

"Yes, sir," Amy said quietly, and the Hedge brothers saw with relief that he pushed the log away from the whirling blade just as Big's toes were about to be sliced. Foreman Flacutono whirled around and stared at Tails in beady rage.

 _"Lucky!"_ he snarled. "Push the log back toward the saw, Amy!"

"Yes, sir," Amy muttered.

 _"Lucky!"_ Tails cried. "Push the log away!"

"Yes, sir," Amy murmured.

 _"Lucky!"_ Foreman Flacutono barked. "Toward the saw!"

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"Lucky toward the saw!"_

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"Lucky toward the saw!"_

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"Lucky toward the saw!"_

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"Lucky toward the saw!"_

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"Lucky toward the saw!"_

 _"Lucky away!"_

 _"LUCKY!"_ bellowed a new voice from the doorway, and everyone—including Tails, Amy, Sonic and Foreman Flacutono—turned around. Even Big tried the best he could to see Dr. Rouge Orwell, who had appeared in the doorway along with Shirley, who was lurking behind the hypnotist.

"We just stopped by to make sure everything went well," Dr. Rouge Orwell said, gesturing to the saw with her black cane. "And I'm certainly glad we did. _Lucky!"_ she shouted to Amy. "Do not listen to your brothers!"

"What a good idea," Foreman Flacutono said the doctor. "I never thought of that."

"That's why you're only a foreman," Dr. Rouge Orwell replied snobbily. _"Lucky,_ Amy! Push the log in the path of the saw!"

"Yes, sir," Amy said, and began to push the log again.

 _"Please,_ Amy!" Tails cried. "Don't do this!"

"Gice!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Don't hurt Big!"

 _"Please,_ Dr. Rouge Orwell!" Tails cried. "Don't force my sister to do this terrible thing!"

"It _is_ a terrible thing, I know," Dr. Rouge Orwell said. "But it's a terrible thing that fortune goes to you three brats, instead of to me and Shirley. We're going to split the money fifty-fifty."

"After expenses, Rouge," Shirley reminded her. "After expenses, of course," Dr. Rouge Orwell said.

The _hmmm_ of the saw began making its louder, rougher sound as the blade started to slice the log once more. Tears appeared in Big's eyes and began to run down the string tying

him to the log. Tails looked at his sister, and then at Dr. Rouge Orwell, and dropped the heavy book on the ground in frustration. What he needed now, and most desperately, was the word that would unhypnotize his sister, but he had no idea what it could be. The command word had been used many times, and Tails had been able to figure out which word had been used over and over. But Amy had only been unhypnotized once, after the accident that had broken Espio's leg. He and his brother had known, in the moment he started defining a word for the employees, that Amy was back to normal, but who knew what word caused her, that afternoon, to suddenly stop following Foreman Flacutono's orders? Tails looked from Big's tears to the ones appearing in Sonic's eyes as the fatal accident grew nearer and nearer. In a moment, it seemed, they would watch Big die a horrible death, and then they would most certainly be placed in Shirley's care. After so many narrow escapes from Count Eggman's treachery, this seemed to be the moment of his—or in this case, _her_ —terrible triumph. Out of all the situations, Tails thought to himself, that he and his siblings had been in, this was the most miserably irregular. It was the most miserably immoderate. It was the most miserably disorderly. It was the most miserably excessive. And as he thought all these words he thought of the one that had unhypnotized Amy, the one that just might save all their lives.

 _"Inordinate!"_ he shouted, as loudly as he could to be heard over the terrible noise of the saw. _"Inordinate! Inordinate! Inordinate!"_

Amy blinked, and then looked all around her as if somebody had just dropped her in the middle of the mill. "Where am I?" she asked.

"Oh, Amy," Tails said in relief. "You're here with us!"

"Drat!" Dr. Rouge Orwell said. "She's unhypnotized! How in the world would a child know a complicated word like 'inordinate'?"

"These brats know lots of words," Shirley said, in her ridiculously fake high voice. "They're book addicts. But we can still create an accident and win the fortune!"

"Oh no you can't!" Amy cried, and stepped forward to push Big out of the way.

"Oh yes we can!" Foreman Flacutono said, and stuck his foot out again. You would think that such a trick would only work a maximum of two times, but in this case you would be wrong, and in this case Amy fell to the floor again, her head clanging against the pile of debarkers and tiny green boxes.

"Oh no you can't!" Tails cried, and stepped forward to push Big out of the way himself. "Oh yes we can!" Shirley said, in her silly high voice, and grabbed Tails' arm.

Foreman Flacutono quickly grabbed him other arm, and the eldest Hedge found himself trapped.

"Oh toonoy!" Sonic cried, and crawled toward Big. He was not strong enough to push the log away from the saw, but he thought she could bite through his string and set him free.

"Oh yes we can!" Dr. Rouge Orwell said, and reached down to grab the youngest Hedge. But Sonic was ready. Quckly he opened her mouth and bit down on the hypnotist's hand as hard as she could.

 _"Gack!"_ Dr. Rouge Orwell shouted, using an expression that is in no particular language.

But then she smiled and used an expression that was in French: _"En garde!"_ "En garde!," as you may know, is an expression people use when they wish to announce the beginning of a sword-fight, and with a wicked smile, Dr. Rouge Orwell pressed the red jewel on top of her black cane, and a shiny blade emerged from the opposite end. In just one second, her cane had become a sword, which she then pointed at the youngest Hedge orphan. But Sonic, being only an infant, had no sword. He only had her four sharp teeth, and, looking Dr. Rouge Orwell right in the eye, he opened his mouth and pointed all four at this despicable person.

There is a loud _clink!_ noise that a sword makes when it hits another sword—or, in this case, a tooth—and whenever I hear it I am reminded of a swordfight I was forced to have with a television repairman not long ago. Sonic, however, was only reminded of how much he did not want to be sliced to bits. Dr. Rouge Orwell swung her cane-sword at Sonic, and Sonic swung his teeth at Dr. Rouge Orwell, and soon the _clink!_ noises were almost as loud as the sawing machine which continued to saw up the log toward Big. _Clink!_ Up, up, the blade inched until it was only a hair's breadth—the expression "hair's breadth" here means "a teeny-tiny measurement"—away from Big's foot.

"Amy!" Tails cried, struggling in the grips of Shirley and Foreman Flacutono. "Do something!"

"Your sister can't do anything!" Shirley said, giggling in a most annoying way.

"She's just been unhypnotized—she's too dazed to do anything. Foreman Flacutono, let's both pull! We can make Tails' armpits sore that way!"

Shirley was right about Tails' sore armpits, but she was wrong about Amy. She _had_ just been unhypnotized, and she _was_ quite dazed, but she wasn't too dazed to do anything. The trouble was, she simply couldn't think of what to do. Amy had been thrown into the corner with the debarkers and the gum, and if she moved in the direction of Big, or Tails, she would walk right into Sonic and Dr. Rouge Orwell's sword-fight, and as she heard another _clink!_ from the sword hitting Sonic's tooth she knew he would be seriously wounded if she tried to walk through the dueling pair. But over the _clink_!s she heard an even louder and even rougher noise from the sawing machine, and Amy saw with horror that the blade was beginning to slice through the soles of Big's shoes. Sir's partner tried to wiggle his feet away from the blade, but they were tied too tightly, and tiny shoe-sole shavings began to fall to the floor of the mill. In a moment the blade would be finished with the sole of Big's shoe and begin on the sole of Big's foot. Amy needed to invent something to stop the machine, and he needed to invent it right away.

Amy stared at the circular blade of the saw, and her heart began to sink. How in the world did Tails do it? Amy did had a mild interest in mechanical things, but at heart she was a reader, not an inventor. She simply did not have Tails' amazing inventing skills. She looked at the machine and just saw a deadly device, but she knew that if Tails were in this corner of the mill, and not getting sore armpits from Shirley and Foreman Flacutono, he would see a way

to help them out of their situation. Amy tried to imagine how her brother would go about inventing something right there on the spot, and tried to copy his methods.

 _Clink!_ Amy looked around her for inventing materials, but saw only debarkers and tiny green boxes of gum. Immediately he ripped open a box of gum and shoved several pieces into his mouth, chewing ferociously. The expression "gum up the works" does not actually have to do with gum, but merely refers to something that stops the progress of something else. Amy chewed and chewed the gum, hoping that the stickiness of the gum could gum up the works of the sawing machine, and stop the deadly progress of its blade.

 _Clink!_ Sonic's third tooth hit the blade of Dr. Rouge Orwell's sword, and Amy quickly spat the gum out of her mouth into her hand and threw it at the machine as hard as she could. But it merely fell to the ground with a wet _plop!_ Amy realized that gum didn't weigh enough to reach the machine. Like a feather, or a piece of paper, the wad of gum simply couldn't be thrown very far.

 _Hukkita_ — _hukkita_ — _hukkita!_ The machine began making the loudest and roughest sound Amy had ever heard. Big closed his eyes, and Amy knew that the blade must have hit the bottom of his foot. He grabbed a bigger handful of gum and shoved it into his mouth, but he didn't know if he could chew enough gum to make a heavy enough invention. Unable to watch the saw any longer, he looked down, and when his eye fell upon one of the debark-ers he knew he could invent something after all. When Amy looked at the lumbermill equipment, she remembered a time when she was even more bored than she had been when working at Lucky Smells. This especially boring time had happened a very long time ago, when the Hedge parents were still alive. Amy had read a book on different kinds of fish, and asked her parents if they would take her fishing. Her mother warned him that fishing was one of the most boring activities in the world, but found two fishing poles in the basement and agreed to take him to a nearby lake. Amy had been hoping that she would get to see the different types of fish she had read about, but instead she and her mother sat in a rowboat in the middle of a lake and did nothing for an entire afternoon. He and his mother had to keep quiet, so as not to scare the fish away, but there were no fish, no conversation, and absolutely no fun. You might think that Amy would not want to remember such a boring time, particularly in the middle of a crisis, but one detail of this very boring afternoon turned out to be extremely helpful.

As Sonic struggled with Dr. Rouge Orwell, Tails struggled with Shirley and Foreman Flacutono, and poor Big struggled with the saw, Amy remembered the part of the fishing process known as casting. Casting is the process of using one's fishing pole to throw one's fishing line out into the middle of the lake in order to try to catch a fish. In the case of Amy and her mother, the casting hadn't worked, but Amy did not want to catch fish. He wanted to save Big's life.

Quickly, the middle Hedge grabbed the debarker and spat her gum onto one end of it. She was planning to use the sticky gum as a sort of fishing line and the debarker as a sort of fishing pole, in order to throw gum all the way to the saw. Amy's invention looked more like a wad of gum at the end of a strip of metal than a real fishing pole, but Amy didn't care how it looked. She only cared whether it could stop the saw. She took a deep breath, and cast the debarker the way her mother taught him to cast his fishing pole.

 _Plop! To_ Amy's delight, the gum stretched over Dr. Rouge Orwell and Sonic, who were still fighting, just as fishing line will stretch out across the surface of a lake. But to Amy's horror, the gum did not land on the saw. It landed on the string that was tying the wriggling Big to the log. Amy watched Big wriggle and was once again reminded of a fish, and it occurred to her that perhaps her invention had worked after all. Gathering up all of her strength—and, after working at a lumbermill for a while, she actually had quite a bit of strength for a young girl—she grabbed her invention, and pulled. Amy pulled on her debarker, and the debarker pulled on the gum, and the gum pulled on the log, and to the relief of all three Hedge orphans the log moved to one side. It did not move very far, and it did not move very quickly, and it certainly did not move very gracefully, but it moved enough. The horrible noise stopped, and the blade of the saw kept slicing, but the log was far enough out of the way that the machine was simply slicing thin air. Big looked at Amy, and his eyes filled with tears, and when Sonic turned to look he saw that Amy was crying, too.

But when Sonic turned to look, Dr. Rouge Orwell saw her chance. With a swing of one of her big ugly boots, she kicked Sonic to the ground and held him in place with one foot. Then, standing over the infant, she raised her sword high in the air and began to laugh a loud, horrible snarl of a laugh. "I do believe," she said, cackling, "that there will be an accident at Lucky Smells Lumbermill after all!"

And Dr. Rouge Orwell was right. There _was_ an accident at the lumbermill, after all, a fatal accident, which is a phrase used to describe one that kills somebody. For just as Dr. Rouge Orwell was about to bring her sword down on little Sonic's throat, the door of the lumbermill opened and Sir walked into the room. "What in the world is going on?" he barked, and Dr. Rouge Orwell turned to him, absolutely surprised. When people are absolutely surprised, they sometimes take a step backward, and taking a step backward can sometimes lead to an accident. Such was the case at this moment, for when Dr. Rouge Orwell stepped backward, she stepped into the path of the whirring saw, and there was a very ghastly accident indeed.

"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful" Sir said shaking the cloud of smoke covering his head. "Dreadfull, Dreadfull, dreadfull"

"I quite agree" Mr Silver Poe said, coughting into his hankercheif, "When youcalled me in this moring and described the situation, I thought it so dreadfull that I cancaled meetings and took the first train to Paltryville, in order to handle this matter personally." "We appreciate it very much," Big said.

"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful," Sir said again.

The Hedge orphans sat together on the floor of Sir's office and looked up at the adults discussing the situation, wondering how in the world they could talk about it so calmly. The word "dreadful," even when used three times in a row, did not seem like a dreadful enough word to describe everything that had happened. Tails was still trembling from how Amy had looked while hypnotized. Amy was still shivering from how Big had almost been sliced up. Sonic was still shaking from how he had almost been killed in the swordfight with Dr. Rouge Orwell. And, of course, all three orphans were still shuddering from how Dr. Rouge Orwell had met her demise, a phrase which here means "stepped into the path of the sawing machine." The children felt as if they could barely speak at all, let alone participate in a conversation.

"It's unbelievable," Sir said, "that Dr. Rouge Orwell was really a hypnotist, and that she hypnotized Amy in order to get ahold of the Hedge fortune. Luckily, Tails figured out how to unhypnotize his sister, and she didn't cause any more accidents."

"It's unbelievable," Big said, "that Foreman Flacutono grabbed me in the middle of the night, and tied me to that log, in order to get ahold of the Hedge fortune. Luckily, Amy invented something that shoved the log out of the path of the saw just in time, and I only have a small cut on my foot."

"It's unbelievable," Mr. Silver Poe said, after a short cough, "that Shirley was going to adopt the children, in order to get ahold of the Hedge fortune. Luckily, we realized her plan, and now she has to go back to being a receptionist."

At this Tails could keep quiet no longer. "Shirley is not a receptionist!" he cried. "She's not even Shirley! She's Count Eggman!"

"Now _that"_ Sir said, "is the part of the story that is so unbelievable that I don't believe it. I met this young woman, and she isn't at all like Count Eggman! She has one eyebrow instead of two, that's true, but plenty of wonderful people have that characteristic!"

"You must forgive the children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "They tend to see Count Eggman everywhere, but ever..."

"Well," Sir said, ignoring Mr Silver Poe "he hasn't been here in Paltryville. We've been looking out for him, remember?"

"Weleef!" Sonic cried. She meant something along the lines of "But he was in disguise, as usual!"

"Can we go see this Shirley person?" Big asked timidly. "The children do seem fairly sure of themselves. Perhaps if Mr. Silver Poe could see this receptionist, we could clear this matter up."

"I put Shirley and Foreman Flacutono in the library, and asked Espio to keep an eye on them," Sir said. "Big's library turns out to be useful at last—as a substitute jail, until we clear up this matter!"

"The library was plenty useful, Sir," Tails said. "If I hadn't read up on hypnosis, your partner, Big, would be dead."

"You certainly are a clever child," Big said.

"Yes," Sir agreed. "You'll do wonderfully at boarding school." "Boarding school?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

"Of course," Sir replied, nodding his cloud of smoke. "You don't think I would keep them now, do you, after all the trouble they've caused my lumbermill?"

"But that wasn't our fault!" Amy cried.

"That doesn't matter," Sir said. "We made a deal. The deal was that I would try to keep Count Eggman away, and you wouldn't cause any more accidents. You didn't keep your end of the deal."

"Hech!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "But you didn't keep your end of the deal, either!" Sir paid no attention.

"Well, let's go see this woman," Mr. Silver Poe said, "and we can settle once and for all whether or not Count Eggman was here."

The three grown-ups nodded, and the three children followed them down the hallway to the library door, where Espio was sitting on a chair with a book in his hands.

"Hello, Espio," Tails said. "How is your leg?"

"Oh, it's getting better," he said, pointing to his cast. "I've been guarding the door, Sir, and neither Shirley nor Foreman Flacutono have escaped. Oh, and by the way, I've been reading this book, _The Paltryville Constitution._ I don't understand all of the words, but it sounds like it's illegal to pay people only in coupons."

"We'll talk about that later," Sir said quickly. "We need to see Shirley about something."

Sir reached forward and opened the door to reveal Shirley and Foreman Flacutono sitting quietly at two tables near the window. Shirley had Dr. Rouge Orwell's book in one hand and waved at the children with the other.

"Hello there, children!" she called, in her phony high voice. "I was so worried about you!" "So was I!" Foreman Flacutono said. "Thank goodness I'm unhypnotized now, so I'm not

treating you badly any longer!"

"So _you_ were hypnotized, too?" Sir asked.

"Of course we were!" Shirley cried. She leaned down and patted all three children on the head. "We never would have acted so dreadfully otherwise, not to three such wonderful and

delicate children!" Behind her false eyelashes, Shirley's shiny eyes gazed at the Hedges as if she were going to eat them as soon as she got the opportunity.

"You see?" Sir said to Mr. Silver Poe. "No wonder it was unbelievable that Foreman Flacutono and Shirley acted so horribly. Of course she's not Count Eggman!"

"Count who?" Foreman Flacutono asked. "I've never heard of the man." "Me neither," Shirley said, "but I'm only a receptionist."

"Perhaps you're not only a receptionist," Sir said. "Perhaps you're also a mother. What do you say, Mr. Silver Poe? Shirley really wants to raise these children, and they're much too much trouble for me."

"No!" Amy cried. "She's Count Eggman, not Shirley!"

Mr. Silver Poe coughed into his white handkerchief at great length, and the three Hedges waited tensely for him to finish coughing and say something. Finally, he removed his handkerchief from his face and said to Shirley, "I'm sorry to say this, ma'am, but the children are convinced that you are a man named Count Eggman, disguised as a receptionist."

"If you'd like," Shirley said, "I can take you to Dr. Rouge Orwell's office—the _late_ Dr. Rouge Orwell's office—and show you my nameplate. It clearly reads 'Shirley.'"

"I'm afraid that would not be sufficient, anyone can have a nameplate made for them" Mr. Silver Poe said. "Would you do us all the courtesy of showing us your left ankle?"

"Why, it's not polite to look at a lady's legs," Shirley said. "Surely you know that."

"If your left ankle does not have a tattoo of an eye on it," Mr. Silver Poe said, "then you are most certainly not Count Eggman."

Shirley's eyes shone very, very bright, and she gave everyone in the room a big, toothy smile. "And what if it _does?"_ she asked, and hitched up her skirt slightly. "What if it _does_ have a tattoo of an eye on it?"

Everyone's eyes turned to Shirley's ankle, and one eye looked back at them. It resembled the eye-shaped building of Dr. Rouge Orwell, which the Hedge orphans felt had been watching them since they arrived in Paltryville. It resembled the eye on the cover of Dr. Orwell's book, which the Hedge orphans felt had been staring at them since they began working at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. And, of course, it looked exactly like Count Eggman's tattoo, which is what it was, and which the Hedge orphans felt had been gazing at them since their parents had died.

"In that case," Mr. Silver Poe said, after a pause, "you are not Shirley. You are Count Eggman, and you are under arrest. I order you to take off that ridiculous disguise!"

"Should I take off my ridiculous disguise, as well?" Foreman Flacutono asked, and tore his white wig off with one smooth motion. It did not surprise the children that he was bald— they had known his absurd hair was a wig from the moment they laid eyes on him—but there

was something about the shape of his bald head that suddenly seemed familiar. Glaring at the orphans with his beady eyes, he grabbed his surgical mask from his face and removed that, too. A long nose uncurled itself from where it had been pressed down to his face, and the siblings saw in an instant that it was one of Count Eggman's assistants.

"It's the bald mongoose!" Tails cried.

"With the long nose!" Amy cried.

"Plemo!" Sonic cried, which meant "Who works for Count Eggman!"

"I guess we're lucky enough to capture _two_ criminals today," Mr. Silver Poe said sternly.

"Well, _three,_ if you include Dr. Rouge Orwell," Count Eggman—and what a relief it is to call him that, instead of Shirley—said.

"Enough nonsense," Mr. Silver Poe said. "You, Count Eggman, are under arrest for various murders and attempted murders, various frauds and attempted frauds, and various despicable acts and attempted despicable acts, and _you,_ my bald, long-nosed friend, are under arrest for helping him."

Count Eggman shrugged, sending his wig toppling to the floor, and smiled at the Hedges in a way they were sorry to recognize. It was a certain smile that Count Eggman had just when it looked like he was trapped. It was a smile that looked as if Count Eggman were telling a joke, and it was a smile accompanied by his eyes shining brightly and his evil brain working furiously. "This book was certainly helpful to you, orphans," Count Eggman said, holding Dr. Rouge Orwell's _Advanced Ocular Science_ high in the air, "and now it will help me." With all his rotten might, Count Eggman turned and threw the heavy book right through one of the library windows. With a crash of tinkling glass, the window shattered and left a good-sized hole. The hole was just big enough for a person to jump through, which is exactly what the bald man did, wrinkling his long nose at the children as if they smelled bad. Count Eggman laughed a horrible, rough laugh, and followed his comrade out the window and away from Paltryville. "I'll be back for you, orphans!" he called. "I'll be back for your lives!"

"Egad!" Mr. Silver Poe said, using an expression which here means "Oh no! He's escaping!"

Sir stepped quickly to the window, and peered out after Count Eggman and the bald moongoose, who were running as fast as their skinny legs could carry them. "Don't come back here!" Sir yelled out after them. "The orphans won't be here, so don't return!"

"What do you mean, the orphans won't be here?" Mr. Silver Poe asked sternly. "You made a deal, and you didn't keep your end of it! Count Eggman was here after all!"

"That doesn't matter," Sir said, waving one of his hands dismissively. "Wherever these children go, misfortune follows, and I will have no more of it!"

"But Sir," Big said, "they're such good children!"

"I won't discuss it anymore," Sir said. "My nameplate says 'The Boss,' and that's who I am. The boss has the last word, and the last word is this: The children are no longer welcome at Lucky Smells!"

Tails, Amy and Sonic looked at one another. "The children are no longer welcome at Lucky Smells," of course, is not the last word, because it is many words, and they knew, of course, that when Sir said "the last word" he didn't mean one word, but the final opinion on the situation. But their experience at the lumbermill had been so very dreadful that they didn't care much that they were leaving Paltry-ville. Even a boarding school sounded like it would be better than their days with Foreman Flacutono, Dr. Rouge Orwell, and the evil Shirley. I'm sorry to tell you that the orphans were wrong about boarding school being better, but at the moment they knew nothing of the troubles ahead of them, only of the troubles behind them, and the troubles that had escaped out the window.

"Can we please discuss this matter later," Tails asked, "and call the police now? Maybe Count Eggman can be caught."

"Excellent idea, Tails," Mr. Silver Poe said, although of course he should have thought of this idea earlier himself. "Sir, please take me to your telephone so we can call the authorities."

"Oh, all right," Sir said grumpily. "But remember, this is my last word on the matter. Big, make me a milkshake. I'm very thirsty."

"Yes, Sir," Big said, and limped after his partner and Mr. Silver Poe, who were already out of the library. Halfway out the door, however, he stopped and smiled apologetically at the Hedges.

"I'm sorry," he said to them. "I'm sorry that I won't be seeing you anymore. But I guess Sir knows best."

"We're sorry too, Big," Amy said. "And I'm sorry that I caused you so much trouble." "It wasn't your fault," Big said kindly, as Espio limped up behind him.

"What happened?" Espio asked. "I heard breaking glass."

"Count Eggman got away," Amy said, and her heart sank as she realized it was really true. "Shirley was really Count Eggman in disguise, and he got away, just like he always does."

"Well, if you look on the bright side, you're really quite lucky," Espio said, and the orphans gave their optimistic friend a curious look and then looked curiously at one another. Once they had been happy children, so content and pleased with their life that they hadn't even known how happy they were. Then came the terrible fire, and it seemed since then that their lives had scarcely had one bright moment, let alone an entire bright side. From home to home they traveled, encountering misery and wretchedness wherever they went, and now the man who had caused such wretchedness had escaped once more. They certainly didn't feel very lucky.

"What do you mean?" Tails asked quietly.

"Well, let me think," Espio said, and thought for a moment. In the background, the orphans could hear the dim sounds of Mr. Silver Poe describing Count Eggman to somebody on the telephone. "You're alive," Espio said finally. "That's lucky. And I'm sure we can think of something else."

The three Hedge children looked at one another and then at Big and Espio, the only people in Paltryville who had been kind to them. Although they would not miss the dormitory, or the terrible casseroles, or the back-breaking labor of the mill, the orphans would miss these two kind people. And as the siblings thought about whom they would miss, they thought how much they would have missed one another, if something even worse had happened to them. What if Sonic had lost the swordfight? What if Amy had remained hypnotized forever? What if Tails had stepped into the path of the saw, instead of Dr. Rouge Orwell? The Hedges looked at the sunlight, pouring through the shattered window where Count Eggman had escaped, and shuddered to think of what could have happened. Being alive had never seemed lucky before, but as the children considered their terrible time in Sir's care, they were amazed at how many lucky things had actually happened to them.

"It _was_ lucky," Tails admitted quietly, "that Amy invented something so quickly, even though she's not an inventor."

"It _was_ lucky," Amy admitted quietly, "that Tails figured out how to end my hypnosis, even though he's not a researcher."

"Croif," Sonic admitted quietly, which meant something like "It _was_ lucky that I could defend us from Dr. Rouge Orwell's sword, if I do say so myself."

The children sighed, and gave each other small, hopeful smiles. Count Eggman was on the loose, and would try again to snatch their fortune, but he had not succeeded this time. They were alive, and as they stood together at the broken window, it seemed that the last word on their situation might be "lucky," the word that had caused so much trouble to begin with. The Hedge orphans were alive, and it seemed that maybe they had an inordinate amount of luck after all.


	6. the austere academy

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Fifth

The Austere Academy

 **Lemony Snicket**

For Cream-

You will always be in my heart, in my mind,

and in your grave.

 _R_

One

 _If_ you were going to give a gold medal to the least delightful person on Earth, you would have to give that medal to a chickmunk named Sally Spats, and if you didn't give it to her, Sally Spats was the sort of person who would snatch it from your hands anyway. Sally Spats was rude, she was violent, and she was filthy, and it is really a shame that I must describe her to you, because there are enough ghastly and distressing things in this story without even mentioning such an unpleasant person.

It is the Hedge orphans, thank goodness, who are the heroes of this story, not the and since then Eggman had followed them everywhere, usually accompanied by one or more of his sinister and ugly associates. No matter who was caring for the Hedges, Count Eggman was always right behind them, performing such dastardly deeds that I can scarcely list them all: kidnapping, murder, nasty phone calls, disguises, poison, hypnosis, and atrocious cooking are just some of the adversities the Hedge orphans survived at his hands. Even worse, Count Eggman had a bad habit of avoiding capture, so he was always sure to turn up again. It is truly awful that this keeps happening, but that is how the story goes.

I only tell you that the story goes this way because you are about to become acquainted with rude, violent, filthy, unpleasant Sally Spats, and if you can't stand reading about her, you had best put this book down and read something else, because it only gets worse from here. Before too long, Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge will have so much adversity that being dreadful Sally Spats, and if you wanted to give a gold medal to Tails, Amy and Sonic Hedge, it would be for survival in the face of adversity. Adversity is a word which here means "trouble," and there are very few people in this world who have had the sort of troubling adversity that follows these three children wherever they go. Their trouble began one day when they were relaxing at the beach and received the distressing news that their parents had been killed in a terrible fire, and so were sent to live with a distant relative named Count Eggman.

If you were going to give a gold medal to Count Eggman, you would have to lock it up some- place before the awarding ceremony, because Count Eggman was such a greedy and evil man that he would try to steal it beforehand. The Hedge orphans did not have a gold medal, but they did have an enormous fortune that their Parents had left them, and it was that fortune Count Eggman tried to snatch. The three siblings survived living with Count Eggman, but just barely, shoved aside by Sally Spats will look like a trip to the ice cream store.

"Get out of my way, you cakesniffers!" said a rude, violent, and filthy little chipmunk girl, shoving the Hedge orphans aside as she dashed by. Tails, Amy and Sonic were too startled to answer. They were standing on a sidewalk made of bricks, which must have been very old because there was a great deal of dark moss oozing out from in between them. Surrounding the sidewalk was a vast brown lawn that looked like it had never been watered, and on the lawn were hundreds of children running in various directions. Occasionally someone would slip and fall to the ground, only to get back up and keep running. It looked exhausting and pointless, two things that should be avoided at all costs, but the Hedge orphans barely glanced at the other children, keeping their eyes on the mossy bricks below them.

Shyness is a curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people at any time, and also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down. This was to be the Hedges' first day at Prufrock Preparatory School , and all three siblings found that they would rather look at the oozing moss than at anything else.

"Have you dropped something?" Mr. Silver Poe asked, coughing into a white handkerchief. One place the Hedges certainly didn't want to look was at Mr. Silver Poe, who was walking closely behind them. Mr. Silver Poe was a banker who had been placed in charge of the Hedges' affairs following the terrible fire, and this had turned out to be a lousy idea. Mr. Silver Poe meant well, but a jar of mustard probably also means well and would do a better job of keeping the Hedges out of danger. Tails, Amy and Sonic had long ago learned that the only thing they could count on from Mr. Silver Poe was that he was always coughing.

"No," Tails replied, "we haven't dropped anything." Tails was the oldest Hedge, and usually he was not shy at all. Tails liked to invent things, and one could often find him thinking hard about her latest invention, with his bangs tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. When his inventions were done, he liked to show them to people he knew, who were usually very impressed with his skill. Right now, as he looked down at the mossy bricks, he thought of a machine he could build that could keep moss from growing on the sidewalk, but he felt too nervous to talk about it. What if none of the teachers, children, or administrative staff were interested in his inventions?

As if she were reading his thoughts, Amy put a hand on Tails' shoulder, and he smiled at her. Amy had known for all twelve of his years that her older brother found a hand on his shoulder comforting-as long as the hand was attached to an arm, of course. Normally Amy would have said something comforting as well, but she was feeling as shy as her brother. Most of the time, Amy could be found doing what she liked to do best, which was reading. Some mornings one could find her in bed with her glasses on because she had been reading so late that she was too tired to take them off. Amy looked down at the sidewalk and remembered a book she had read called _Moss Mysteries,_ but she felt too shy to bring it up. What if Prufrock Preparatory School had nothing good to read?

Sonic, the youngest Hedge, looked up at his siblings, and Tails smiled and picked him up. This was easy to do because Sonic was a baby and only a little bit larger than a loaf of bread. Sonic was also too nervous to say anything, although it was often difficult to understand what he said when he did speak up. For instance, if Sonic had not been feeling so shy, he might have opened his mouth, revealing his four sharp teeth, and said "Marimo!" which may have meant "I hope there are plenty of things to bite at school, because biting things is one of my favorite things to do!" or "I hope that they have a good gym, because I also love to run!"

"I know why you're all so quiet," Mr. Silver Poe said. "It's because you're excited, and I don't blame you. I always wanted to go to boarding school when I was younger, but I never had the chance. I'm a little jealous of you, if you want to know the truth."

The Hedge looked at one another. The fact that Prufrock Preparatory School was a boarding school was the part that made them feel the most nervous. If no one was interested in inventions, or there was nothing to read, or biting wasn't allowed, they were stuck there, not only all day but all night as well. The siblings wished that if Mr. Silver Poe were really jealous of them he would attend Prufrock Preparatory School himself, and they could work at the bank.

"You're very lucky to be here," Mr. Silver Poe continued. "I had to call more than four schools before I found one that could take all three of you at such short notice. Prufrock Prep-that's what they call it, as a sort of nickname-is a very fine academy. The teachers all have advanced degrees. The dormitory rooms are all finely furnished. And most important of all,

there is an advanced computer system which will keep Count Eggman away from you. Vice Principal Router told me that Count Eggman's complete description-everything from his one long eyebrow to the tattoo of an eye on his left ankle-has been programmed into the computer, so you three should be safe here for the next several years."

"But how can a computer keep Count Eggman away?" Tails asked in a puzzled voice, still looking down at the ground.

"It's an _advanced_ computer," Mr. Silver Poe said, as if the word "advanced" were a proper explanation instead of a word meaning "having attained advancement."

"Don't worry your little heads about Count Eggman. Vice Principal Router has promised me that he will keep a close eye on you. After all, a school as _advanced_ as Prufrock Prep wouldn't allow people to simply run around loose."

"Move, cakesniffers!" the rude, violent, and filthy little cipmunck said as she dashed by them again.

"What does 'cakesniffers' mean?" Tails murmured to Amy, who had an enormous vocabulary from all her reading.

"I don't know," Amy admitted, "but it doesn't sound very nice."

"What a charming word that is," Mr. Silver Poe said. _"Cakesniffers._ I don't know what it means, but it reminds me of pastry. Oh well, here we are." They had come to the end of the mossy brick sidewalk and stood in front of the school. The Hedges looked up at their new home and gasped in surprise. Had they not been staring at the sidewalk the whole way across the lawn, they would have seen what the academy looked like, but perhaps it was best to delay looking at it for as long as possible. A person who designs buildings is called an architect, but in the case of Prufrock Prep a better term might be "depressed architect." The school was made up of several buildings, all made of smooth gray stone, and the buildings were grouped together in a sort of sloppy line. To get to the buildings, the Hedges had to walk beneath an immense stone arch casting a curved shadow on the lawn, like a rainbow in which all of the colors were gray or black. On the arch were the words "PRUFROCK PREPARATORY SCHOOL " in enormous black letters, and then, in smaller letters, the motto of the school, "Memento Mori." But it was not the buildings or the arch that made the children gasp. It was how the buildings were shaped-rectangular, but with a rounded top. A rectangle with a rounded top is a strange shape, and the orphans could only think of one thing with that shape. To the Hedges each building looked exactly like a gravestone.

"Rather odd architecture," Mr. Silver Poe commented. "Each building looks like a thumb. In my case, you are to report to Vice Principal Router's office immediately. It's on the ninth floor of the main building."

"Aren't you coming with us, Mr. Silver Poe?" Tails asked. Tails was fourteen, and he knew that fourteen was old enough to go to somebody's office by himself, but he felt nervous about walking into such a sinister-looking building without an adult nearby.

Mr. Silver Poe coughed into his handkerchief and looked at his wristwatch at the same time. "I'm afraid not," he said when his coughing passed. "The banking day has already begun. But I've

talked over everything with Vice Principal Router, and if there's any problem, remember you can always contact me or any of my associates at Mulctuary Money Management. Now, off you go. Have a wonderful time at Prufrock Prep."

"I'm sure we will," said Tails, sounding much braver than she felt. "Thank you for everything, Mr. Silver Poe."

"Yes, thank you," Amy said, shaking the banker's hand. "Terfunt," Sonic said, which was his way of saying "Thank you."

"You're welcome, all of you," Mr. Silver Poe said. "So long." He nodded at all three Hedges, and Tails and Sonic watched him walk back down the mossy sidewalk, carefully avoiding the running children. But Amy didn't watch him. Amy was looking at the enormous arch over the academy.

"Maybe I don't know what 'cakesniffer' means," Amy said, "but I think I can translate our new school's motto."

"It doesn't even look like it's in English," Tails said, peering up at it. "Racho," Sonic agreed.

"It's not," Amy said. "It's in Latin. Many mottoes are in Latin, for some reason. I don't know very much Latin, but I do remember reading this phrase in a book about the Middle Ages. If it means what I think it means, it's certainly a strange motto."

"What do you think it means?" Tails asked.

"If I'm not mistaken," said Amy, who was rarely mistaken, "'Memento Mori' means 'Remember you will die.'"

"Remember you will die," Tails repeated quietly, and the three siblings stepped closer to one another, as if they were very cold. Everybody will die, of course, sooner or later. Circus performers will die, and clarinet experts will die, and you and I will die, and there might be a person who lives on your block, right now, who is not looking both ways before he crosses the street and who will die in just a few seconds, all because of a bus. Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact. The children certainly did not want to remember that they would die, particularly as they walked beneath the arch over Prufrock Prep. The Hedge orphans did not need to be reminded of this as they began their first day in the giant graveyard that was now their home.

 _R_

Two

 _As_ the Hedge orphans stood outside Vice Principal Router's door, they were reminded of something their father said to them just a few months before he died. One evening, the Hedge parents had gone out to hear an orchestra play, and the three children had stayed by themselves in the family mansion. The Hedges had something of a routine on nights like this. First, Tails and Amy would play a few games of chess while Sonic ripped up some old newspapers or took a ru on his running mashine, and then the three children would read in the library until they fell asleep on comfortable sofas. When their parents came home they would wake up the sleeping children, talk to them a little about the evening, and send them off to bed. But on this particular night, the Hedge parents came home early and the children were still up reading-or, in Sonic's case, looking at the pictures. The siblings' father stood in the doorway of the library and said something they never forgot. "Children," he said, "there is no worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway."

At the time, the Hedges had merely giggled, but as they listened outside the vice principal's door, they realized that their

father had been absolutely right. When they first approached the heavy wooden door, it sounded like a small animal was having a temper tantrum. But as they listened more closely, the children realized it was somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway. The sounds shrieked and hissed and scratched and moaned and made other horrible sounds that are really impossible to describe, and finally Tails could take it no longer and knocked on the door. He had to knock very hard and at length, in order to be heard over the atrocious violin recital going on inside, but at last the wooden door opened with a creak and there stood a tall, plump walrus with a violin under his chin and an angry glare in his eyes.

"Who dares interrupt a genius when he is rehearsing?" he asked, in a voice so loud and booming that it was enough to make anyone shy all over again.

"The Hedges," Amy said quietly, looking at the floor. "Mr. Silver Poe said to come right to Vice Principal Router's office."

 _"Mr. Silver Poe said to come right to Vice Principal Router's office,"_ the walrus mimicked in a high, shrieky voice. "Well, come in, come in, I don't have all afternoon."

The children stepped into the office and got a better look at the walrus who had mocked them. He was dressed in a rumpled brown suit that had something sticky on its jacket, and he was wearing a tie decorated with pictures of snails. His nose was very small and very red, as if somebody had stuck a cherry tomato in the middle of his splotchy face. He was almost completely bald, but he had four tufts of hair, which he had tied into little pigtails with some old rubber bands. The Hedges had never seen anybody who looked like him before and they weren't particularly interested in looking at him any further, but his office was so small and bare that it was difficult to look at anything else. There was a small metal desk with a small metal chair behind it and a small metal lamp to one side. The office had one window, decorated with curtains that matched the man's tie. The only other object in the room was a shiny computer, which sat in a corner of the room like a toad. The computer had a blank gray screen and several buttons as red as the pigtailed man's nose.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the Walrus announced in a loud voice, "Vice Principal Router!"

There was a pause, and the three children looked all around the tiny room, wondering where Router had been hiding all this time. Then they looked back at the walrus with the pigtails, who was holding both hands up in the air, his violin and bow almost touching the ceiling, and they realized that the man he had just introduced so grandly was himself. Walrus paused for a moment and looked down at the Hedges.

"It is traditional," he said sternly, "to applaud when a genius has been introduced."

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold. But Vice Principal Router looked so ferocious that the children felt this was a time to honor tradition, so they began clapping their hands and didn't stop until Router took several bows and sat down in his chair.

"Thank you very much, and welcome to Prufrock Preparatory School, _blah blah blah"_ he said, using the word "blah" to mean that he was too bored to finish his sentence properly. "I'm certainly doing Mr. Silver Poe a favor in taking on three orphans at such short notice. He assured me that you won't cause any trouble, but I did a little research of my own. You've been sent to legal guardian after legal guardian, and adversity has always followed. 'Adversity' means 'trouble,' by the way."

"In our case," Amy said, not pointing out that she already knew what the word "adversity" meant, "'adversity' means _Count Eggman._ He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardians."

 _"He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardians,"_ Router said in his nasty, mimicking way. "I'm not interested in your problems, quite frankly. I am a genius and have no time for anything other than playing the violin. It's depressing enough that I had to take this job as vice principal because not a single orchestra appreciates my genius. I'm not going to depress myself further by listening to the problems of three bratty children. Anyway, here at Prufrock Prep there'll be no blaming your own weaknesses on this Count Eggman person. Look at this."

Vice Principal Router walked over to the computer and pressed two buttons over and over again. The screen lit up with a light green glow, as if it were seasick. "This is an advanced computer," Router said. "Mr. Silver Poe gave me all the necessary information about the man you call Count Eggman, and I programmed it into the computer. See?" Router pressed another button, and a small picture of Count Eggman appeared on the computer screen. "Now that the advanced computer knows about him, you don't have to worry."

"But how can a computer keep Count Eggman away?" Amy asked. "He could still show up and cause trouble, no matter what appears on a computer screen."

"I shouldn't have bothered trying to explain this to you," Vice Principal Router said. "There's no way uneducated people like yourself can understand a genius like me. Well, Prufrock Prep will take care of that. You'll get an education here if we have to break both your arms to do it. Speaking of which, I'd better show you around. Come here to the window."

The Hedge orphans walked to the window and looked down at the brown lawn. From the ninth floor, all the children running around looked like tiny ants, and the sidewalk looked like a ribbon somebody had thrown away. Router stood behind the siblings and pointed at things with his violin.

"Now, this building you're in is the administrative building. It is completely off-limits to students. Today is your first day, so I'll forgive you, but if I see you here again, you will not be allowed to use silverware at any of your meals. That gray building over there contains the classrooms. Tails, you will be studying with Mr. Bean Remora in Room One, and Amy, you will be studying with Mrs. Mina Bass in Room Two. Can you remember that, Room One and Room Two? If you don't think you can remember, I have a felt-tipped marker, and I will write 'Room One' and 'Room Two' on your hands in permanent ink."

"We can remember," Tails said quickly. "But which classroom is Sonic's?"

Vice Principal Router drew himself up to his full height, which in his case was five feet, ten inches. "Prufrock Preparatory School is a serious academy, not a nursery school. I told Mr. Silver Poe that we would have room for the baby here, but we do not have a classroom for her. Sonic will be employed as my secretary."

"Aregg?" Sonic asked incredulously. "Incredulously" is a word which here means "not being able to believe it," and "Aregg" is a word which here means "What? I can't believe it."

"But Sonic's a _baby"_ Amy said. "Babies aren't supposed to have jobs."

 _"Babies aren't supposed to have jobs "_ Router mimicked again, and then continued. "Well, babies aren't supposed to be at boarding schools, either," Router pointed out. "Nobody can teach a baby anything, so he'll work for me. All he has to do is answer the phone and take care of paperwork. It's not very difficult, and it's an honor to work for a genius, of course. Now, if either of you are late for class, or Sonic is late for work, your hands will be tied behind your back during meals. You'll have to lean down and eat your food like a dog. Of course, Sonic will always have her silverware taken away, because he will work in the administrative building, where he's not allowed."

"That's not fair!" Tails cried.

 _"That's not fair!"_ the vice principal squealed back at her. "The stone building over there contains the cafeteria. Meals are served promptly at breakfast time, lunchtime, and dinnertime. If you're late we take away your cups and glasses, and your beverages will be served to you in large puddles. That rectangular building over there, with the rounded top, is the auditorium. Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word 'mandatory' means that if you don't show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it. The lawn serves as our sports facility. Our regular gym teacher, Miss Tench, accidentally tell out of a third-story window a few days ago, but we have a replacement, who should arrive shortly. In the meantime, I've instructed the children just to run around as fast as they can during gym time. I think that just about covers everything. Are there any questions?"

"Could anything be worse than this?" was the question Sonic had, but he was too well mannered to ask this. "Are you kidding about all these incredibly cruel punishments and rules?" was the question Amy thought of, but she already knew that the answer was no. Only Tails thought of a question that seemed useful to ask.

"I have a question, Vice Principal Router," he said. "Where do we live?"

Router's response was so predictable that the Hedge orphans could have said it along with this miserable administrator. _"Where do we live?"_ he said in his high, mocking tone, but when he was done making fun of the children he decided to answer it. "We have a magnificent dormitory here at Prufrock Prep," he said. "You can't miss it. It's a gray building, entirely made of stone and shaped like a big toe. Inside is a huge living room with a brick fireplace, a game room, and a large lending library. Every student has his or her own room, with a bowl of fresh fruit placed there every Wednesday. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Yes, it does," Amy admitted.

"Keeb!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "I like fruit!"

"I'm glad you think so," Router said, "although you won't get to see much of the place. In order to live in the dormitory, you must have a permission slip with the signature of a parent or guardian. Your parents are dead, and Mr. Silver Poe tells me that your guardians have either been killed or have fired you."

"But surely Mr. Silver Poe can sign our permission slip," Tails said.

"He surely can _not"_ Router replied. "He is neither your parent nor your guardian. He is a banker who is in charge of your affairs."

"But that's more or less the same thing," Amy protested.

 _"That's more or less the same thing,"_ Router mimicked. "Perhaps after a few semesters at Prufrock Prep, you'll learn the difference between a parent and a banker. No, I'm afraid you'll have to live in a small shack, made entirely of tin. Inside there is no living room, no game room, and no lending library whatsoever. You three will each have your own bale of hay to sleep on, but no fruit. It's a dismal place, but Mr. Silver Poe tells me that you've had a number of uncomfortable experiences, so I figured you'd be used to such things."

"Couldn't you please make an exception?" Tails asked.

"I'm a _violinist!"_ Router cried. "I have no time to make exceptions! I'm too busy practicing the violin. So if you will kindly leave my office, I can get back to work."

Amy opened her mouth to say something more, but when she looked at Router, she knew that there was no use saying another word to such a stubborn man, and she glumly followed her brother out of the vice principal's office. When the office door shut behind them, however, Vice Principal Router said another word, and he said it three times. The three children listened to these three words that he said and knew for certain that he had not been sorry at all. For as soon as the Hedges left the office and Router thought he was alone, he said to him-self, Hee hee hee."

Now, the vice principal of Prufrock Preparatory School did not actually say the syllables hee hee hee," of course. Whenever you see the words "hee hee hee" in a book, or "ha ha ha," or "har har har," or "heh heh heh," or even "ho ho ho," those words mean somebody was laughing. In this case, however, the words "hee hee hee" cannot really describe what Vice Principal Router's laugh sounded like. The laugh was squeaky, and it was wheezy, and it had a rough, crackly edge to it, as if Router were eating tin cans as he laughed at the children. But most of all, the laugh sounded _cruel._ It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself. But the Hedges were not wearing ugly hats. They were young children receiving bad news, and if Vice Principal Router really had to laugh at them, he should have been able to control himself until the siblings were out of earshot. But Router didn't care about controlling himself, and as the Hedge orphans listened to the laugh, they realized that what their father had said to them that night when he'd come home from the symphony was wrong.

There _was_ a worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway. The sound of an administrator laughing a squeaky, wheezy, rough, crackly, cruel laugh at children who have to live in a shack was much, much worse. So as I hide out here in this mountain cabin and write the words "hee hee hee," and you, wherever you are hiding out, read the words "hee hee hee," you should know that "hee hee hee" stands for the worst sound the Hedges had ever heard.

Chapter Three:

The expression, 'Making a mountain out of a molehill' simpy means making a big deal over something that's really a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came out. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they never caused anyone any harm except for maybe a stubbed toe when you were walking in the wilderness with no shoes. Moutains on the other hand ar very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or

wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe.

When the Hedge orphans reached the shack where they were going to live, however, they realized that Vice Principal Router hadn't been making a mountain out of a molehill at all when he had said that the shack was a dismal place. If anything, he had been making a molehill out of a mountain. It was true that the shack was tiny, as Router had said, and made of tin, and if was true that there was no living room, no game room, and no lending library. It was true that there were three bales of hay instead of beds, and that there was absolutely no fresh fruit in sight. But Vice Principal Router had left out a few details in his description, and it was these details that made the shack even worse. The first detail the Hedges noticed was that the shack was infested with small crabs, each one about the size of a matchbox, scurrying around the wooden floor with their tiny claws snapping in the air. As the children walked across the shack to sit glumly on one of the bales of hay, they were disappointed to learn that the crabs were territorial, a word which here means "unhappy to see small children in their living quarters." The crabs gathered around the children and began snapping their claws at them. Luckily, the crabs did not have very good aim, and luckily, their claws were so small that they probably wouldn't hurt any more than a good strong pinch, but even if they were more or less harmless they did not make for a good shack.

When the children reached the bale of hay and sat down, tucking their legs up under them to avoid the snapping crabs, they looked up at the ceiling and saw another detail Router had neglected to mention. Some sort of fungus was growing on the ceiling, a fungus that was light tan and quite damp. Every few seconds, small drops of moisture would fall from the fungus with a _plop!_ and the children had to duck to avoid getting light tan fungus juice on them. Like the small crabs, the _plop!_ ing fungus did not appear to be very harmful, but also like the small crabs, the fungus made the shack even more uncomfortable than the vice principal had described it.

And lastly, as the children sat on the bale of hay with their legs tucked beneath them and ducked to avoid fungus juice, they saw one more harmless but unpleasant detail of the shack that was worse than Router had led them to believe, and that was the color of the walls.

Each tin wall was bright green, with tiny pink hearts painted here and there as if the shack were an enormous, tacky Valentine's Day card instead of a place to live, and the Hedges found that they would rather look at the bales of hay, or the small crabs on the floor, or even the light tan fungus on the ceiling than the ugly walls. Overall, the shack was too miserable to serve as a storage space for old banana peels, let alone as a home for three young people, and I confess that if I had been told that it was my home I probably would have lain on the bales of hay and thrown a temper tantrum. But the Hedges had learned long ago that temper tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them. So after a long, miserable silence, the orphans tried to look at their situation in a more positive light. "

"This isn't such a nice room," Tails said finally, "but if I put my mind to it, I bet I can invent something that can keep these crabs away from us."

"And I'm going to read up on this light tan fungus," Amy said. "Maybe the dormitory library has information on how to stop it from dripping."

"Ivoser," Sonic said, which meant something like "I bet I can use my four sharp teeth to scrape this paint away and make the walls a bit less ugly."

Amy gave her baby brother a little kiss on the top of his head. "At least we get to go to school," she pointed out. "I've missed being in a real classroom."

"Me too," Tails agreed. "And at least we'll meet some people our own age. We've only had the company of adults for quite some time."

"Wonic," Sonic said, which probably meant "And learning secretarial skills is an exciting opportunity for me, although I should really be in nursery school instead."

"That's true," Amy said. "And who knows? Maybe the advanced computer really can keep Count Eggman away, and that's the most important thing of all."

"You're right," Tails said. "Any room that doesn't have Count Eggman in it is good enough for me."

"Olo," Sonic said, which meant "Even if it's ugly, damp, and filled with crabs."

The children sighed and then sat quietly for a few moments. The shack was quiet, except for the snapping of tiny crab claws, the _plop!_ of fungus, and the sighs of the Hedges as they looked at the ugly walls. Try as they might, the youngsters just couldn't make the shack into a molehill. No matter how much they thought of real classrooms, people their own age, or the exciting opportunity of secretarial skills, their new home seemed much, much worse than even the sorest of stubbed toes.

"Well," Amy said after a while, "it feels like it's about lunchtime. Remember, if we're late they take away our cups and glasses's so we should probably get a move on."

"Those rules are ridiculous," Tails said, ducking to avoid a _plop!_ "Lunchtime isn't a specific time, so you can't be late for it. It's just a word that means 'around lunch.'"

"I know," Amy said, "and the part about Sonic being punished for going to the administrative building, when she _has_ to go there to be Router's secretary, is completely absurd."

"Kalc!" Sonic said, putting his little hand on her brother's knee. He meant something like "Don't worry about it. I'm a baby, so I hardly ever use silverware. It doesn't matter that it'll be taken away from me."

Ridiculous rules or not, the orphans did not want to be punished, so the three of them walked gingerly-the word "gingerly" here means "avoiding territorial crabs"-across the shack and out onto the brown lawn. Gym class must have been over, because all the running children were gone, and this only made the Hedges walk even more quickly to the cafeteria.

Several years before this story took place, when Tails was ten and Amy was eight and Sonic was not even a fetus, the Hedge family went to a county fair in order to see a pig that their Uncle Elwyn had entered in a contest. The pig contest turned out to be a bit dull, but in the neighboring tent there was another contest that the family found quite interesting: the Biggest Lasagna Contest. The lasagna that won the blue ribbon had been baked by eleven nuns, and was as big and soft as a large mattress. Perhaps because they were at such an impressionable age-the phrase "impressionable age" here means "ten and eight years old, respectively"- Tails and Amy always remembered this lasagna, and they were sure they would never see another one anywhere near as big.

Tails and Amy were wrong. When the Hedges entered the cafeteria, they found a vegetarian lasagna waiting for them that was the size of a dance floor. It was sitting on top of an enormous trivet to keep it from burning the floor, and the person serving it was wearing a thick metal mask as protection, so that the children could only see their eyes peeking out from tiny eyeholes. The stunned Hedges got into a long line of children and waited their turn for the metal masked person to scoop lasagna onto ugly plastic trays and hand it wordlessly to the children. After receiving their vegetarian lasagna, the orphans walked further down the line and helped themselves to ceaser salad, which was waiting for them in a bowl the size of a pickup truck. Next to the salad was a mountain of garlic bread, and at the end of the line was another metal-masked person, handing out silverware to the students who had not been inside the administrative building

The Hedges said "thank you" to the person, who gave them a slow metallic nod in return. They took a long look around the crowded cafeteria. Hundreds of children had already received their lasagna and were sitting at long rectangular tables. The Hedges saw several other children who had undoubtedly been in the administrative building, because they had no silverware. They saw several more students who had their hands tied behind their backs as punishment for being late to class. And they saw several students who had a sad look on their faces, as if they had been forced to buy somebody a bag of candy and watch them eat it, and the orphans guessed that these students had failed to show up to one of Router's six-hour concerts.

But it was none of these punishments that made the Hedge orphans pause for so long. It was the fact that they did not know where to sit. Cafeterias can be confusing places, because there are different rules for each one, and sometimes it is difficult to know where one should eat. Normally, the Hedges would simply eat with one of their friends, but their friends were far, far away from Prufrock Preparatory School, Tails, Amy and Sonic gazed around the cafeteria full of strangers and thought they might never put down their ugly trays. Finally, they caught the eye of the chipmunk they had seen on the lawn, who had called them such a strange name, and walked a few steps toward her.

Now, you and I know that this loathsome little girl was Sally Spats, but the Hedges had not been properly introduced to her and so did not realize just how loathsome she was, although as the orphans drew closer she gave them an instant education.

"Don't even _think_ of eating around here, you cakesniffers!" Sally Spats cried, and several of her rude, filthy, violent friends nodded in agreement. "Nobody wants to have lunch with people who live in the Orphans Shack!"

"I'm terribly sorry," Amy said, although she wasn't terribly sorry at all. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Sally, who had apparently never been to the administrative building, picked up her silverware and began to bang it on her tray in a rhythmic and irritating way. "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack!" she chanted, and to the Hedges' dismay, many other children joined right in. Like many other rude, violent, filthy people, Sally Spats had a bunch of friends who were always happy to help her torment people-probably to avoid being tor-mented themselves. In a few seconds, it seemed like the entire cafeteria was banging their silverware and chanting, "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack!" The three siblings stepped closer together, craning their necks to see if there was any possible place to which they could escape and eat their lunch in peace.

"Oh, leave them alone, Sally!" a voice cried over the chanting. The Hedges turned around and saw a green hedgehog with very wide eyes. He looked a little older than Amy and a little younger than Tails and had a dark green notebook tucked into the pocket of his thick wool sweater. _"You're_ the cakesniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want to eat with you anyway. Come on," the boy said, turning to the Hedges. "There's room at our table."

"Thank you very much," Tails said in relief and followed the boy to a table that had plenty of room. He sat down next to a girl hedgehog who looked a bit identical to the boy. She looked about the same age, and but had very light hair, extremely purple lls, very wide eyes, and a notebook tucked into the pocket of _her_ thick wool sweater. The only difference seemed to be that the girl's notebook was purple. Seeing two people who look so much alike is a little bit eerie, but it was better than looking at Sally Spats, so the Hedges sat down across from them and introduced themselves.

"I'm Tails Hedge," said Tails Hedge, "and this is my sister Amy, and our baby brother, Sonic."

"It's nice to meet you," said the boy. "My name is Manic Quagmire, and this is my sister, Sonia. And the girl who was yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Sally Spats."

"She didn't seem very nice," Amy said.

"That is the understatement of the century," Sonia said. "Sally Spats is rude, filthy, and violent, and the less time you spend with her the happier you will be."

"Read the Hedges the poem you wrote about her," Manic said to his sister.

"You write poetry?" Amy asked. She had read a lot about poets but had never met one. "Just a little bit," Sonia said modestly. "I write poems down in this notebook. It's an

interest of mine, along with playing the keyboard, but I don't have it anymore."

"Sappho!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something like "I'd be very pleased to hear a poem of yours!"

Amy explained to the Quagmires what Sonic meant, and Sonia smiled and opened her notebook. "It's a very short poem," she said. "Only two rhyming lines."

"That's called a couplet," Amy said. "I learned that from a book of literary criticism." "Yes, I know," Sonia said, and then read her poem, leaning forward so Sally Spats

would not overhear:

 _"I would rather eat a bowl of vampire bats than spend an hour with Sally Spats."_

The Hedges giggled and then covered their mouths so nobody would know they were laughing at Sally. "That was great," Amy said. "I like the part about the bowl of bats."

"Thanks," Sonia said. "I would be interested in reading that book of literary criticism you told me about. Would you let me borrow it?"

Amy looked down. "I can't," she said. "That book belonged to my father, and it was destroyed in a fire."

The Quagmires looked at one another, and their eyes grew even wider. "I'm very sorry to hear that," Manic said. "My sister and I have been through a terrible fire, so we know what that's like. Did your father die in the fire?"

"Yes he did," Tails said, "and my mother too."

Sonia put down her fork, reached across the table, and patted Tails on the hand. Normally this might have embarrassed Tails a little bit, but under the circumstances it felt perfectly natural. "I'm so sorry to hear that," she said. "Our parents died in a fire as well. It's awful to miss your parents so much, isn't it?"

"Bloni," Sonic said, nodding.'"

"For a long time," Manic admitted, "I was afraid of any kind of fire. I didn't even like to look at stoves."

Tails smiled. "We stayed with a woman for a while, our Aunt Sticks, who was afraid of stoves. She was afraid that they might explode."

"Explode!" Manic said. "Even I wasn't afraid as all that. Why aren't you staying with your Aunt Sticks now?"

Now it was Tails's turn to look down, and Manic 's turn to reach across the table and take her hand. "She died too," Tails said. "To tell you the truth, Manic , our lives have been very topsy-turvy for quite some time."

"I'm very sorry to hear it," Manic said, "and I wish I could tell you that things will get better here. But between Vice Principal Router playing the violin, Sally Spats teasing us, and the dreadful Orphans Shack, Prufrock Prep is a pretty miserable place."

"I think it's awful to call it the Orphans Shack," Amy said. "It's a bad enough place without giving it an insulting nickname."

"The nickname is more of Sally's handiwork, I'm sorry to say," Sonia said. "Manic and I had to live there for three semesters because we needed a parent or guardian to sign our permission slip, and we didn't have one."

"That's the same thing that happened to us!" Tails cried. "And when we asked Router to make an exception-"

"He said he was too busy practicing the violin," Sonia said, nodding as she finished Tails' sentence. "He always says that. Anyway, Sally called it the Orphans Shack when we were living there, and it looks like she's going to keep on doing it."

"Well," Tails sighed, "Sally's nasty names are the least of our problems in the shack.

How did you deal with the crabs when you lived there?"

Manic took his notebook out of his pocket, as Sonia got her hand off Tails' hand. "I use my notebook to take notes on things," Manic explained. "I plan to be a newspaper reporter when I get a little older and I figure it's good to start practicing. Here it is: notes on the crabs. They're afraid of loud noises, you see, so I have a list of things we did to scare them away from us."

"Afraid of loud noises," Tails repeated, and tied his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes.

"When he ties his hair up like that," Amy explained to the Quagmires, "it means he's thinking of an invention. My brother is quite an inventor."

"How about noisy shoes?" Tails said suddenly. "If we took small pieces of metal and glued them to our shoes? Then wherever we walked would make a loud noise, and I bet we'd hardly ever see those crabs."

"Noisy shoes!" Manic cried. "Sonia and I lived in the Orphans Shack all that time and never thought of noisy shoes!" He took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote "noisy shoes" in the dark green notebook, and then turned a page. "I do have a list of fungus books that are in the school library, if you need help with that tan stuff on the ceiling."

"Zatwal!" Sonic shrieked.

"We'd love to see the library," Tails translated. "It sure is lucky that we ran into you two twins."

Manic's and Sonia's faces fell, an expression which does not mean that the front part of their heads actually fell to the ground. It simply means that the two siblings suddenly looked very sad.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked. "Did we say something that upset you?" "Twins," Manic said, so softly that the Hedges could barely hear him.

"You _are_ twins, aren't you?" Tails asked. "You look just alike."

"We're triplets," Sonia said sadly.

"I'm confused," Tails said. "Aren't triplets _three_ people born at the same time?"

"We _were_ three people born at the same time," Sonia explained, "but our brother, Shadow, died in the fire that killed our parents."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Tails said. "Please forgive our calling you twins. We meant no disrespect to Shadow's memory."

"Of course you didn't," Manic said, giving the Hedges a small smile. "There's no way you could have known. Come on, if you're done with your lasagna we'll show you the library."

"And maybe we can find some pieces of metal," Sonia said, "for noisy shoes."

The Hedge orphans smiled, and the five of them bussed their trays and walked out of the cafeteria. The library turned out to be a very pleasant place, _but_ it was not the comfortable chairs, the huge wooden bookshelves, or the hush of people reading that made the three siblings feel so good as they walked into the room. It is useless for me to tell you all about the brass lamps in the shapes of different fish, or the bright blue curtains that rippled like water as a breeze came in from the window, because although these were wonderful things they were not what made the three children smile. The Quagmire triplets were smiling, too, and although I have not researched the Quagmires nearly as much as I have the Hedges, I can say with reasonable accuracy that they were smiling for the same reason.

It is a relief, in hectic and frightening times, to find true friends, and it was this relief that all five children were feeling as the Quagmires gave the Hedges a tour of the Prufrock Library. Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences, a phrase which here means "having lost family members in terrible fires and lived in the Orphans Shack." As Manic and Sonia whispered to Tails, Amy and Sonic, explaining how the library was organized, the Hedge children felt less and less distressed about their new circumstances, and by the time Manic and Sonia were recommending their favorite books, the three siblings thought that perhaps their troubles were coming to an end at last. They were wrong about this, of course, but tor the moment it didn't matter. The Hedge orphans had found friends, and as they stood in the library with the Quagmire triplets, the world felt smaller and safer than it had for a long, long time.

 _R_

Four

 _If_ you have walked into a museum recently- whether you did so to attend an art exhibition in to escape from the police-you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A triptych has three panels, with something different painted on each of the panels. For instance, my friend Professor Reed made a triptych for me, and he painted fire on one panel, a typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, intelligent rabbit on the third. The triptych is entitled _What Happened to Cream_ and I cannot look upon it without weeping.

I am a writer, and not a painter, but if I were to try and paint a triptych entitled _The Baudelaire Orphans' Miserable Experiences at Prufrock Prep,_ I would paint Mr. Bean Remora on one panel, Mrs. Mina Bass on another, and a box of staples on the third, and the results would make me so sad that between the Cream triptych and the Hedge triptych I would scarcely stop weeping all day.

Mr. Bean Remora was Tails' teacher, and he was so terrible that Tails thought that he'd almost rather stay in the Orphans Shack all morning and eat his meals with his hands tied behind his back rather than hurry to Room One and learn from such a wretched man. Mr. Bean Remora, was a plump duck and he had a dark and thick mustache, as if somebody had chopped off a gorilla's thumb and stuck it above Mr. Bean Remora's lip, and also like a gorilla, Mr. Bean Remora was constantly eating bananas. Bananas are a fairly delicious fruit and contain a healthy amount of potassium, but after watching Mr. Bean Remora shove banana after banana into his mouth, dropping banana peels on the floor and smearing banana pulp on his chin and in his mustache, Tails never wanted to see another banana again. In between bites of banana, Mr. Bean Remora would tell stories, and the children would write the stories down in notebooks, and every so often there would be a test. The stories were very short, and there were a whole lot of them on every conceivable subject. "One day I went to the store to purchase a carton of milk," Mr. Bean Remora would say, chewing on a banana. "When I got home, I poured the milk into a glass and drank it. Then I watched television. The end." Or: "One afternoon a man named Thomas got into a royal blue truck and drove to a farm. The farm had geese and cows. The end." Mr. Bean Remora would tell story after story, and eat banana after banana, and it would get more and more difficult for Tails to pay attention. To make things better, He sat next to Sonia, and they would pass notes to one another on particularly boring days. But to make things worse, Sally Spats sat right behind Tails, and every few minutes she would lean forward and poke Tails with a stick she had found on the lawn. "Orphan," she would whisper and poke Tails with the stick,

and Tails would lose his concentration and forget to write down some detail of Mr. Bean Remora's latest story.

Across the hall in Room Two was Amy's teacher Mrs. Mina Bass, whose purple hair was so long and messy that it almost reached the floor, and vaguely looked like a purple gorilla. Mrs. Mina Bass was a poor teacher, a phrase which here does not mean "a teacher who doesn't have a lot of money" but "a teacher who is obsessed with the metric system." The metric system, you probably know, is the system by which the majority of the world measures things. Just as it is perfectly all right to eat a banana or two, it is perfectly all right to be interested in measuring things. Amy could remember a time, when she was about eight years old, when she had measured the width of all the doorways in the Hedge mansion when she was bored one rainy afternoon. But rain or shine, all Mrs. Mina Bass wanted to do was measure things and write down the measurements on the chalkboard. Each morning, she would walk into Room Two carrying a bag full of ordinary objects-a frying pan, a picture frame, the skeleton of a cat-and place an object on each student's desk. "Measure!" Mrs. Mina Bass would shout, and everybody would take out their rulers and measure whatever it was that their teacher had put on their desks. They would call out the measurements to Mrs. Mina Bass, who would write them on the board and then have everybody switch objects. The class would continue on in this way for the entire morning, and Amy would feel her eyes glaze over-the phrase "glaze over" here means "ache slightly out of boredom." Across the room, Manic Quagmire's eyes were glazing over too, and occasionally the two of them would look at one another and stick their tongues out as if to say, _Mrs. Mina Bass is terribly boring, isn't_ _she?_

But Sonic, instead of going into a classroom, had to work in the administrative building, and I must say that her situation was perhaps the worst in the entire triptych. As Vice Principal Router's secretary, Sonic had numerous duties assigned to him that were simply impossible for a baby to perform. For instance, he was in charge of answering the telephone, but people who called Vice Principal Router did not always know that "Seltepia!" was Sonic's way of saying "Good morning, this is Vice Principal Router's office, how may I help you?" By the second day Router was furious at him for confusing so many of his business associates. In addition, Sonic was in charge of typing, stapling, and mailing all of Vice Principal Router's letters, which meant she had to work a computer, a stapler, and stamps, all of which were designed for adult use. Unlike many babies, Sonic had some experience in hard work-after all, she and her siblings had worked for some time at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill-but this equipment was simply inappropriate for such tiny fingers. Sonic could did not know how to spell most of the words Router dictated. She had never used a stapler before, so he sometimes stapled his fingers by mistake, which hurt quite a bit. And occasionally one of the stamps would stick to his tongue and wouldn't come off.

In most schools, no matter how miserable, the students have a chance to recuperate during the weekend, when they can rest and play instead of attending wretched classes, and the Hedge orphans looked forward to taking a break from looking at bananas, rulers, and secretarial supplies. So they were quite distressed one Friday when the Quagmires informed them that Prufrock Prep did not have weekends. Saturday and Sunday were regular schooldays, supposedly in keeping with the school's motto. This rule did not really make any sense-it is, after all, just as easy to remember you will die when you are relaxing as when you are in school-but that was the way things were, so the Hedges could never remember exactly what day it was, so repetitive was their schedule. So I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you what day it was when Sonic noticed that the staple supply was running low, but I can

tell you that Router informed him that because he had wasted so much time learning to be a secretary he would not buy any more when they ran out. Instead Sonic would have to make staples himself, out of some skinny metal rods Router kept in a drawer.

"That's ridiculous!" Tails cried when Sonic told him of Router's latest demand. It was after dinner, and the Hedge orphans were in the Orphans Shack with the Quagmire triplets, sprinkling salt at the ceiling. Tails had found some pieces of metal behind the cafeteria and had fashioned five pairs of noisy shoes: three for the Hedges and two for the Quagmires so the crabs wouldn't bother them when they visited the Orphans Shack. The problem of the tan fungus, however, was yet to be solved. With Manic's help, Amy had found a book on fungus in the library and had read that salt might make this particular fungus shrivel up. The Quagmires had distracted some of the masked cafeteria workers by dropping their trays on the ground, and while Router yelled at them for making a mess, the Hedges had slipped three saltshakers into their pockets. Now, in the brief recess after dinner, the five children were sitting on bales of hay, trying to toss salt onto the fungus and talking about their day.

"It certainly is ridiculous," Tails agreed. "It's silly enough that Sonic has to be a secretary, but making her own staples? I've never heard of anything so unfair."

"I think staples are made in factories," Manic said, pausing to flip through his green notebook to see if he had any notes on the matter. "I don't think people have made staples by hand since the fifteenth century."

"If you could snitch some of the skinny metal rods, Sonic," Sonia said, "we could all help make the staples after dinnertime. If five of us worked together, it would be much less trouble. And speaking of trouble, I'm working on a poem about Count Eggman, but I'm not sure I know words that are terrible enough to describe him."

"And I imagine it's easy find words that rhyme with 'Eggman','" Tails said.

"It's not," Sonia admitted. "I can think of billions of word for 'man' but I want to make a full rhyme for 'Eggman' but I found nothing. But I'll think of something"

"Maybe someday you'll be able to publish your poem about Count Eggman," Amy said, "and everyone will know how horrible he is."

"And I'll write a newspaper article all about him," Manic volunteered.

"I think I could build a printing press myself," Tails said. "Maybe when I come of age, I can use some of the Hedge fortune to buy the materials I would need."

"Could we print books, too?" Amy asked.

Tails smiled. He knew his sister was thinking of a whole library they could print for themselves. "Books, too," he said.

"The Hedge fortune?" Manic asked. "Did your parents leave behind a fortune, too? Our parents owned the famous Quagmire sapphires, which were unharmed in the fire. When we come of age, those precious jewels will belong to us. We could start our printing business together."

"That's a wonderful idea!" Tails cried. "We could call it Quagmire- Hedge Incorporated."

 _"We could call it Quagmire-Hedge Incorporated!"_ The children were so surprised to hear the sneering voice of Vice Principal Router that they dropped their saltshakers on the ground. Instantly, the tiny crabs in the Orphans Shack picked them up and scurried away with them before Router could notice. "I'm sorry to interrupt you in the middle of your important business meeting," he said, although the youngsters could see that the vice principal wasn't sorry one bit. "The new gym teacher has arrived, and he was interested in meeting our orphan population before my concert began. Apparently orphans have excellent bone structure or something. Isn't that what you said, Coach Genghis?"

"Oh yes," said a tall, skinny hedgehog, who stepped forward to reveal himself to the children. The man was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, such as any gym teacher might wear. On his feet were some expensive-looking running shoes with very high tops, and around his neck was a shiny silver whistle. Wrapped around the top of his head was a length of cloth secured in place with a shiny red jewel. Such things are called turbans and are worn by some people for religious reasons, but Tails, Amy and Sonic took one look at this man and knew that he was wearing a turban for an entirely different reason.

"Oh yes," the man said again. "All orphans have perfect legs for running, and I couldn't wait to see what specimens were waiting for me here in the shack."

"Children," Router said, "get up off of your hay and say hello to Coach Genghis."

"Hello, Coach Genghis," Manic said.

"Hello, Coach Genghis," Sonia said.

The Quagmire triplets each shook Coach Genghis's bony hand and then turned and gave the Hedges a confused look. They were clearly surprised to see the three siblings still sitting on the hay and staring up at Coach Genghis rather than obeying Router's orders. But had I been there in the Orphans Shack, I most certainly would not have been surprised, and I would bet _What Happened to Cream,_ my prized triptych, that had you been there you would not have been surprised, either. Because you have probably guessed, as the Hedges guessed, why the man who was calling himself Coach Genghis was wearing a turban. A turban covers people's hair, which can alter their appearance quite a bit, and if the turban is arranged so that it hangs down rather low, as this one did, the folds of cloth can even cover the eyebrows-or in this case, _eyebrow_ -of the person wearing it. But it cannot cover someone's shiny, shiny eyes, or the greedy and sinister look that somebody might have in their eyes when the person looks down at three relatively helpless children.

What the man who called himself Coach Genghis had said about all orphans having perfect legs for running was utter nonsense, of course, but as the Hedges looked up at their new gym teacher, they wished that it weren't nonsense. As the man who called himself Coach Genghis looked back at them with his shiny, shiny eyes, the Hedge orphans wished more than anything that their legs could carry them far, far away from the man who was really Count Eggman.

The expression 'Following suit' is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing. If you follow suit, it means you do the same thing that somebody else had done. If all your friends decided to jump off a bridge into the icy waters of an ocean or a river, for instance, and you jumped in after them, you would be following suit. You can see why following suit can be a dangerous thing to do because you would end up drowning simply because somebody else thought of it first.

This is why, when Tails stood up from the hay and said, "How do you do, Coach Genghis?" Amy and Sonic were reluctant to follow suit. It was inconceivable to the younger Hedges that their brother had not recognized Count Eggman, and that he hadn't leaped to him feet and informed Vice Principal Router what was going on. For a moment, Amy and Sonic even considered that Tails had been hypnotized, as Amy had been back when the Hedge orphans were living in Paltryville. But Tails' eyes did not look any wider than they did normally, nor did he say "How do you do, Coach Genghis?" in the dazed tone of voice Amy had used when she had been under hypnosis.

But although they were puzzled, the younger Hedges trusted their brother absolutely. He had managed to prevent Amy from marrying Count Eggman when it had seemed like it would be inevitable, a word which here means "a lifetime of horror and woe." And "Bound to happen". He had made a lockpick when they'd needed one in a hurry, and had used his inventing skills to help them escape from some very hungry leeches. So even though they could not think what the reason was, Amy and Sonic knew that Tails must have had a good reason to greet Count Eggman politely rather than reveal him instantly, and so, after a pause, they followed suit.

"How do you do, Coach Genghis?" Amy said.

"Gefidio!" Sonic shrieked.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Coach Genghis said, and smirked. The Hedges could tell he thought he had fooled them completely and was very pleased with himself.

"What do you think, Coach Genghis?" Vice Principal Router asked. "Do any of these orphans have the legs you're looking for?"

Coach Genghis scratched his turban and looked down at the children as if they were an all-you-can-eat salad bar instead of five orphans. "Oh yes," he said in the wheezy voice the Hedges still heard in their nightmares. With his bony hands, he pointed first at Tails, then at Amy, and lastly at Sonic.

"These three children here are just what I'm looking for, all right. I have no use for these twins, however."

"Neither do I," Router said, not bothering to point out that the Quagmires were triplets. He then looked at his watch. "Well, it's time for my concert. Follow me to the auditorium, all of you, unless you are in the mood to buy me a bag of candy."

The Hedge orphans hoped never to buy their vice principal a gift of any sort, let alone a bag of candy, which the children loved and hadn't eaten in a very long time, so they followed Router out of the Orphans Shack and across the lawn to the auditorium. The Quagmires followed suit, staring up at the gravestone buildings, which looked even spookier in the moonlight.

"This evening," Router said, "I will be playing a violin sonata I wrote myself. It only lasts about a half hour, but I will play it twelve times in a row."

"Oh, good," Coach Genghis said. "If I may say so, Vice Principal Router, I am an enormous fan of your music. Your concerts were one of the main reasons I wanted to work here at Prufrock Prep."

"Well, it's good to hear that," Router said. "It's difficult to find people who appreciate me as the genius I am."

"I know the feeling," Coach Genghis said. "I'm the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen, and yet there hasn't even been one parade in my honor."

"Shocking," Router said, shaking his head.

The Hedges and the Quagmires, who were walking behind the adults, looked at one another in disgust at the braggy conversation they were overhearing, but they didn't dare speak to one another until they arrived at the auditorium, taking seats as far away as possible from Sally Spats and her loathsome friends.

There is one, and only one, advantage to somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway, and the advantage is that they often play so loudly that they cannot hear if the audience is having a conversation. It is extremely rude, of course, for an audience to talk during a concert performance, but when the performance is a wretched one, and lasts six hours, such rudeness can be forgiven. So it was that evening, for after introducing himself with a brief, braggy speech, Vice Principal Router stood on the stage of the auditorium and began playing his sonata for the first time.

When you listen to a piece of classical music, it is often amusing to try and guess what inspired the composer to write those particular notes. Sometimes a composer will be inspired by nature and will write a symphony imitating the sounds of birds and trees. Other times a composer will be inspired by the city and will write a concerto imitating the sounds of traffic and sidewalks. In the case of this sonata, Router had apparently been inspired by somebody beating up a cat, because the music was loud and screechy and made it quite easy to talk during the performance. As Router sawed away at his violin, the students of Prufrock Prep began to talk amongst themselves. The Hedges even noticed Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass, who were supposed to be figuring out which students owed Router bags of candy, giggling and sharing a banana in the back row. Only Coach Genghis, who was sitting in the center of the very front row, seemed to be paying any attention to the music.

"Our new gym teacher looks creepy," Sonia said.

"That's for sure," Manic agreed. "It's that sneaky look in his eye."

"That sneaky look," Tails said, taking a sneaky look herself to make sure Coach Genghis wasn't listening in, "is because he's not really Coach Genghis. He's not really any coach. He's Count Eggman in disguise."

"I _knew_ you recognized him!" Amy said.

"Count Eggman?" Manic said. "How awful! How did he follow you here?"

"Stewak," Sonic said glumly.

"My brother means something like 'He follows us everywhere,'" Tails explained, "and he's right. But it doesn't matter how he found us. The point is that he's here and that he undoubtedly has a scheme to snatch our fortune."

"But why did you pretend not to recognize him?" Amy asked.

"Yes," Sonia said. "If you told Vice Principal Router that he was really Count Eggman, then Router could throw the cakesniffer out of here, if you'll pardon my language."

Tails shook his head to indicate that he disagreed with Sonia and that she didn't mind about "cakesniffer." "Eggman's too clever for that," he said. "I knew that if I tried to tell Router that he wasn't really a gym teacher, he would manage to wiggle out of it, just as he did with Aunt Sticks and Uncle Knuckles and everybody else."

"That's good thinking," Amy admitted.

"Plus, if Eggman thinks that he's fooled us, it might give us some more time to figure out exactly what he's up to."

"Lirt!" Sonic pointed out.

"My brother means that we can see if any of his assistants are around," Tails translated. "That's a good point, Sonic. I hadn't thought of that."

"Count Eggman has assistants?" Sonia asked. "That's not fair. He's bad enough without people helping him."

"His assistants are as bad as he is," Amy said. "There are two powder-faced women who forced us to be in his play. There's a hook-handed fox who helped Eggman murder our Uncle Knuckles."

"And the bald man who bossed us around at the lumbermill, don't forget him," Tails added.

"Aeginu!" Sonic said, which meant something like "And the assistant that looks like neither a man nor a woman."

"What does 'aeginu' mean?" Manic asked, taking out his notebook. "I'm going to write down all these details about Eggman and his troupe."

"Why?" Tails asked.

"Why?" Sonia repeated. "Because we're going to help you, that's why! You don't think we'd just sit here while you tried to escape from Eggman's clutches, would you?"

"But Count Eggman is very dangerous," Amy said. "If you try and help us, you'll be risking your lives."

"Never mind about that," Manic said, although I am sorry to tell you that the Quagmire triplets should have minded about that. They should have minded very much. Manic and

Sonia were very brave and caring to try and help the Hedge orphans, but bravery often demands a price. By "price" I do not mean something along the lines of five dollars. I mean a much, much bigger price, a price so dreadful that I cannot speak of it now, but I can say that they are still alive and well as the Hedges, but their actions that day will still scar them to this day, but must return to the scene I am writing at this moment.

"Never mind about that," Manic said. "What we need is a plan. Now, we need to prove to Router that Coach Genghis is really Count Eggman. How can we do that?"

"Router has that computer," Tails said thoughtfully. "He showed us a little picture of Eggman on the screen, remember?"

"Yes," Amy said, shaking her head. "He told us that the advanced computer system would keep Eggman away. So much for computers."

Sonic nodded his head in agreement, and Tails picked him up and put him on his lap. Router had reached a particularly shrieky section of his sonata, and the children had to lean forward to one another in order to continue their conversation. "If we go and see Router first thing tomorrow morning," Tails said, "we can talk to him alone, without Eggman butting in. We'll ask him to use the computer. Router might not believe us, but the computer should be able to convince him to at least investigate Coach Genghis. I can even tell him that I've built a computer from scratch and it worked almost perfectly"

"Maybe Router will make him take off the turban," Sonia said, "revealing Eggman's only eyebrow."

"Or take off those expensive-looking running shoes," Tails said, "revealing Eggman's tattoo."

"But if you talk to Router," Sonia said, "then Coach Genghis will know that you're

suspicious."

"That's why we'll have to be extra careful," Amy said. "We want Router to find out about Eggman, without Eggman finding out about us."

"And in the meantime," Manic said, "Sonia and I will do some investigating ourselves.

Perhaps we can spot one of these assistants you've described."

"That would be very useful," Amy said, "if you're sure about wanting to help us."

"Say no more about it," Manic said and patted Amy's hand. And they said no more about it. They didn't say another word about Count Eggman for the rest of Router's sonata, or while he performed it the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time, or the fifth time, or even the sixth time, by which time it was very, very late at night. The Hedge orphans and the Quagmire triplets merely sat in a companionable comfort, a phrase which here means many things, all of them happy even though it is quite difficult to be happy while hearing a terrible sonata performed over and over by a man who cannot play the violin, while attending an atrocious boarding school with an evil man sitting nearby undoubtedly planning something dreadful. But happy moments came rarely and unexpectedly in the Hedges' lives, and the three siblings had learned to accept them. Manic kept his hand on Amy's and talked to her about terrible concerts he had attended back when the Quagmire parents were alive, and she was happy to hear his stories. Sonia began working on a poem about inventing and showed Tails what she had written in her notebook, and Tailss was happy to offer suggestions. And

Sonic snuggled down in Tails' lap and chewed on the armrest of his seat, happy to bite something that was so sturdy.

I'm sure you would know, even if I didn't tell you, that things were about to get much worse for the Hedges, but I will end this chapter with this moment of companionable comfort rather than skip ahead to the unpleasant events of the next morning, or the terrible trials of the days that followed, or the horrific crime that marked the end of the Hedges' time at Prufrock Prep. These things happened, of course, and there is no use pretending they didn't. But for now let us ignore the terrible sonata, the dreadul teachers, the nasty, teasing students, and the even more wretched things that will be happening soon enough. Let us enjoy this brief moment of comfort, as the Hedges enjoyed it in the company of the Quagmire triplets and, in Sonic's case, an armrest. Let us enjoy, at the end of this chapter, the last happy moment any of these children would have for a long, long time.

Prufrock preparatory School is now closed. It has been closed ever since Mrs. Mina Bass was arrested for robbing a bank. If you were to visit it now, you will find it an empty and silent place. If you walked on the lawn you won't see any children running around, as there were the day the Hedges arrived. If you walked by the buildings containing classrooms, you won't heat the droning voice of Mr. Bean Remora telling a story, and if you were to walk by the building containing the auditorium, you would not hear the scrapings and shriekings of Vice Principal Router playing the violin. If you went and stood beneath the arch, looking up at the black letters spelling out the name of the school and its austere-a word which here means

"stern and severe"-motto, you would hear nothing but the _swish_ of the breeze through the brown and patchy grass.

In short, if you went and visited Prufrock Preparatory School today, the academy would look more or less as it did when the Hedges woke up early the next morning and walked to the administrative building to talk to Router about Coach Genghis. The three children were so anxious to talk to him that they got up especially early, and as they walked across the lawn it felt as if everyone else at Prufrock Prep had slipped away in the middle of the night, leaving the orphans alone amongst the tombstone-shaped buildings. It was an eerie feeling, which is why Tails and Sonic were surprised when Amy broke the silence by laughing suddenly.

"What are you snickering at?" Tails asked.

"I just realized something," Amy said. "We're going to the administrative building without an appointment. We'll have to eat our meals without silverware."

"There's nothing funny about that!" Tails said. "What if they serve oatmeal for breakfast?

We'll have to scoop it up with our hands."

"Oot," Sonic said, which meant "Trust me, it's not that difficult," and at that the Baudelaire brothers joined their sister in laughter. It was not funny, of course, that Router enforced such terrible punishments, but the idea of eating oatmeal with their hands gave all three siblings the giggles.

"Or fried eggs!" Tails said. "What if they serve runny fried eggs?"

"Or pancakes, covered in syrup!" Amy said.

"Soup!" Sonic shrieked, and they all broke out in laughter again.

"Remember the picnic?" Tails said. "We were going to Rutabaga River for a picnic, and Father was so excited about the meal he made that he forgot to pack silverware!"

"Of course I remember," Amy said. "We had to eat all that sweet-and-sour shrimp with our hands.

"Sticky!" Sonic said, holding her hands up.

"It sure was," Tails agreed. "Afterward, we went to wash our hands in the river, and we found a perfect place to try the fishing rod I made."

"And I picked blackberries with Mother," Amy said.

"Eroos," Sonic said, which meant something like "And I bit rocks, and ran up and down the hill"

The children stopped laughing now as they remembered that afternoon, which hadn't been so very long ago but felt like it had happened in the distant, distant past. After the fire, the children had known their parents were dead, of course, but it had felt like they had merely gone away somewhere and would be back before long. Now, remembering the way the

sunlight had shone on the water of Rutabaga River and the laughter of their parents as they'd made a mess of themselves eating the sweet-and-sour shrimp, the picnic seemed so far away that they knew their parents were never coming back.

"Maybe we'll go back there," Tails said quietly. "Maybe someday we can visit the river again, and catch fish and pick blackberries."

"Maybe we can," Amy said, but the Hedges all knew that even if someday they went back to Rutabaga River -which they never did, by the way that it would not be the same. "Maybe we can, but in the meantime we've got to talk to Router. Come on, here's the administrative building."

The Hedges sighed and walked into the building, surrendering the use of Prufrock Prep's silverware. They climbed the stairs to the ninth floor and knocked on Router's door, surprised that they could not hear him practicing the violin. "Come in if you must," Router said, and the orphans walked in. Router had his back to the door, looking at his reflection in the window as he tied a rubber band around one of his pigtails. When he was finished, he held both hands up in the air. "Ladies and gentlemen, Vice Principal Router!" he announced, and the children began applauding obediently. Router whirled around.

"I only expected to hear one person clapping," he said sternly. "Tails and Amy, you're not allowed up here. You know that."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Tails said, "but all three of us have something very important we need to discuss with you."

 _"All three of us have something very important we need to discuss with you,"_ Router replied in his usual nasty way. "It must be important for you to sacrifice your silverware privileges for today. Well, well, out with it. I have a lot of rehearsing to do for my next concert, so don't waste my time."

"This won't take long," Amy promised. She paused before continuing, which is a good thing to do if you're choosing your words very, very carefully. "We are concerned," she continued, choosing her words very, very carefully, "that Count Eggman may have somehow managed to get to Prufrock Prep."

"Nonsense," Router said. "Now go away and let me practice the violin."

"But it might not be nonsense," Tails said. "Eggman is a master of disguise. He could be right under our very noses and we wouldn't know it."

"The only thing under _my_ nose," Router said, "is my mouth, which is telling you to leave."

"Count Eggman could be Mr. Bean Remora," Tails said. "Or Mrs. Mina Bass."

"Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass have taught at this school for more than forty seven years," Router said dismissively. "I would know if one of them were in disguise."

"What about the people who work at the cafeteria?" Amy asked. "They're always wearing those metal masks."

"Those are for safety, not for disguises," Router said. "You brats have some very silly ideas. Next you'll be saying that Count Eggman has disguised himself as your boyfriend, what's-his- name, the triplet."

Amy blushed. "Manic Quagmire is not my boyfriend," she said, "and he's not Count Eggman, either."

But Router was too busy making idiotic jokes to listen. "Who knows?" he asked, and then laughed again. "Hee hee hee. Maybe he's disguised himself as Sally Spats."

"Or me!" came a voice from the doorway. The Hedges whirled around and saw Coach Genghis standing there with a red rose in his hand and a fierce look in his eye.

"Or you!" Router said. "Hee hee hee. Imagine this Eggman fellow pretending to be the finest gym teacher in the country."

Amy looked at Coach Genghis and thought of all the trouble he had caused, whether he was pretending to be Uncle Knuckles' assistant Stefano, or Captain Sham, or Shirley, or any of the other phony names he had used. Amy wanted desperately to say "You _are_ Count Eggman!" but he knew that if the Hedges pretended that Coach Genghis was fooling them, they had a better chance of revealing his plan, whatever it was. So he bit his tongue, a phrase which here means that he simply kept quiet. He did not actually bite his tongue, but opened his mouth and laughed. "That would be funny!" she lied. "Imagine if you were really Count Eggman! Wouldn't that be funny, Coach Genghis? That would mean that your turban would really be a disguise!"

"My turban?" Coach Genghis said. His fierce look melted away as he realized-incorrectly, of course-that Amy was joking. "A disguise? Ho ho ho!"

"Hee hee hee!" Router laughed.

Tails and Sonic both saw at once what Amy was doing, and they followed suit. "Oh yes, Genghis," Tails cried, as if he were joking, "take your turban off and show us the one eyebrow you are hiding! Ha ha ha!"

"You three children are really quite funny!" Router cried. "You're like three professional comedians!"

"Volasocks!" Sonic shrieked, showing all four teeth in a fake smile.

"Oh yes," Amy said. "Sonic is right! If you were really Eggman in disguise, then your running shoes would be covering your tattoo!"

"Hee hee hee!" Router said. "You children are like three clowns!" "Ho ho ho!" Count Eggman said.

"Ha ha ha!" Tails said, who was beginning to feel queasy from faking all this laughter. Looking up at Genghis, and smiling so hard that her teeth ached, she stood on tiptoe and tried

to reach his turban. "I'm going to rip this off," she said, as if she were still joking, "and show off your one eyebrow!"

"Hee hee hee!" Router said, shaking his pigtails in laughter. "You're like three trained monkeys!"

Amy crouched down to the ground and grabbed one of Genghis's feet.

"And I'm going to rip your shoes off," she said, as if _she_ were still joking, "and show off your tattoo!"

"Hee hee hee!" Router said. "You're like three-"

The Hedges didn't get to hear what they were three of, because Coach Genghis stuck out both of his arms, catching Amy with one hand and Tails with the other. "Ho ho ho!" he said, and then abruptly stopped laughing. "Of course," he said in a tone of voice that was suddenly serious, "I can't take off my running shoes, because I've been exercising and my feet smell, and I can't take off my turban for religious reasons."

"Hee hee-" Router stopped giggling and became very serious himself.

"Oh, Coach Genghis," he said, "we wouldn't ask you to violate your religious beliefs, and I certainly don't want your feet stinking up my office."

Tails struggled to reach the turban and Amy struggled to remove one of the evil coach's shoes, but Genghis held them both tight.

"Drat!" Sonic shrieked.

"Joke time is over!" Router announced. "Thank you for brightening up my morning, children. Good-bye, and enjoy your breakfast without silverware! Now, Coach Genghis, what can I do for you?"

"Well, Router," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"

"Oh, thank you," Router said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I _was_ wonderful, wasn't I?"

"You were _perfection!"_ Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-"

The Hedges did not hear about the fifth time because Router's door swung shut behind them. They looked at one another in dismay. The Hedges had come very close to revealing Coach Genghis's disguise, but close was not enough. They trudged silently out of the administrative building and over to the cafe-teria. Evidently, Router had already called the metal-masked cafeteria workers, because when Tails and Amy reached the end of the line, the workers refused to hand them any silverware. Prufrock Prep was not serving oatmeal for

breakfast, but Tails and Amy knew that eating scrambled eggs with their hands was not going to be very pleasant.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Sonia said when the children slid glumly into seats beside the Quagmires. "Here, Tails and I will take turns with my silverware, and you can share with Manic , Amy. Tell us how everything went in Router's office."

"Not very well," Tails admitted. "Coach Genghis got there right after we did, and we didn't want him to see that we knew who he really was."

Sonia pulled her notebook out of her pocket and read out loud to her friends.

 _"It would be a stroke of luck_

 _if Coach Genghis were hit by a truck,_ "

she read. "That's my latest poem. I know it's not that helpful, but I thought you might like to hear it anyway."

"I did like hearing it," Amy said. "And it certainly _would be_ a stroke of luck if that happened. But I wouldn't bet on it."

"Well, we'll think of another plan," Manic said, handing Amy his fork.

"I hope so," Tails said. "Count Eggman doesn't usually wait very long to put his evil schemes into action."

"Kosbal!" Sonic shrieked.

"Does Sonic mean 'I have a plan'?" Sonia asked. "I'm trying to get the hang of his way of talking."

"I think he means something more like 'Here comes Sally Spats,'" Amy said, pointing across the cafeteria. Sure enough, Sally Spats was walking toward their table with a big, smug smile on her face.

"Hello, you cakesniffers," she said. "I have a message for you from Coach Genghis. I get to be his Special Messenger because I'm the cutest, prettiest, nicest girl in the whole school."

"Oh, stop bragging, Sally," Manic said.

"You're just jealous," Sally replied, "because Coach Genghis likes me best instead of you."

"I couldn't care less about Coach Genghis," Manic said. "Just deliver your message and leave us alone."

"The message is this," Sally said. "The three Hedge orphans are to report to the front lawn tonight, immediately after dinner."

"After dinner?" Tails said. "But after dinner we're supposed to go to Router's violin recital."

"That's the message," Sally insisted. "He said that if you don't show up you'll be in big trouble, so if I were you, Tails-"

"You _aren't_ Tails, thank goodness," Sonia interrupted. It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yourself. "Thank you for your message. Good-bye."

"It is traditional," Sally said, "to give a Special Messenger a tip after she has delivered a message."

"If you don't leave us alone," Sonia said, "you're going to get a headful of scrambled eggs as a tip."

"You're just a jealous cakesniffer," Sally sneered, but she left the Hedges and Quagmires alone.

"Don't worry," Manic said when he was sure Sally couldn't hear him. "It's still morning. We have all day to figure out what to do. Here, have another spoonful of eggs, Tails."

"No, thank you," Tails said. "I don't have much of an appetite." And it was true. None of the Hedges had an appetite. Scrambled eggs had never been the siblings' favorite dish, particularly Sonic, who much preferred food she could really sink her teeth into, but their lack of appetite had nothing to do with the eggs. It had to do with Coach Genghis, of course, and the message that he had sent to them. It had to do with the thought of meeting him on the lawn, after dinner, all alone. Manic was right that it was still morning, and that they had all day to figure out what to do. But it did not feel like morning. Tails, Amy and Sonic sat in the cafeteria, not taking another bite of their breakfast, and it felt like the sun had already set. It felt like night had already fallen, and that Coach Genghis was already waiting for them. It was only morning, and the Hedge orphans already felt like they were in his clutches.

 _The_ Hedge orphans' schoolday was particularly austere, a word which here means that Mr. Bean Remora's stories were particularly boring, Mrs. Mina Bass's obsession with the metric

system was particularly irritating, and Router's administrative demands were particularly difficult, but Tails, Amy and Sonic did not really notice. Tails sat at his schooldesk, and anybody who did not know Tails would have thought that he was paying close attention, because his bangs was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. But Tails' thoughts were far, far away from the dull tales Mr. Bean Remora was telling. He had tied his hair up, of course, to help focus him keen inventing brain on the problem that was facing the Hedges, and he didn't want to waste an ounce of his attention on the rambling, banana-eating duck in the front of the room.

Mrs. Mina Bass had brought in a box of pens for her class and was having them figure out if one of them was any longer or shorter than the rest. And if Mrs. Mina Bass weren't so busy pacing around the room shouting "Measure!" she might have looked at Amy and thought that perhaps she shared her obsession with measurement, because her eyes were sharply focused as if she were concentrating. But Amy was spending the morning on autopilot, a word which here means "measuring pencils without really thinking about them." As she placed pencil after pencil next to her ruler, she was thinking of books she had read that might be helpful for their situation.

And if Vice Principal Router had stopped practicing his violin and looked in on his infant secretary, he would have guessed that Sonic was working very hard, mailing letters he had dictated to various candy companies complaining about their candy quality. But even though Sonic was typing, stapling, and stamping as quickly as he could, his mind was not on secretarial supplies but on the appointment he and his siblings had with Coach Genghis that evening, and what they could do about it.

The Quagmires were curiously absent from lunch, so the Hedges were really forced to eat with their hands this time, but as they picked up handfuls of spaghetti and tried to eat them as neatly as possible the three children were thinking so hard that they barely spoke. They knew, almost without discussing the matter, that none of them had been able to guess Coach Genghis's plan, and that they hadn't figured out a way to avoid their appointment with him on the lawn, an appointment that drew closer and closer with every handful of lunch. The Hedges passed the afternoon in more or less the same way, ignoring Mr. Bean Remora's stories, Mrs. Mina Bass's pencils, and the diminishing supply of staples, and even during gym period-one of Sally's bratty friends informed them that Genghis would start teaching the next day, but in the meantime they were to run around as usual-the three children raced around the lawn in utter silence, devoting all of their brainpower to thinking about their situation.

The Hedges had been so very quiet, and thinking so very hard, that when the Quagmires sat down across from them at dinnertime and said in unison, "We've solved your problem," it was more of a startle than a relief.

"Goodness," Tails said. "You startled me."

"I thought you'd be relieved," Manic said. "Didn't you hear us? We said we've solved your problem."

"We're startled _and_ relieved," Amy said. "What do you mean, you've solved our problem? My brothers and I have been thinking about it all day, and we've gotten nowhere. We don't know what Coach Genghis is up to, although we're sure he's up to something. And we don't

know how we can avoid meeting him after dinner, although we're sure that he'll do something terrible if we do."

"At first I thought he might simply be planning to kidnap us," Tails said, "but he wouldn't have to be in disguise to do that."

"And at first I thought we should call Mr. Silver Poe after all," Amy said, "and tell him what's going on. But if Count Eggman can fool an advanced computer, he'll surely be able to fool an average banker, but I find it unlikely that he'll be fooled for the 4th time."

"Toricia!" Sonic said in agreement.

"Manic and I have been thinking about it all day, too," Sonia said. "I filled up five and a half pages of my notebook writing down possible ideas, and Manic filled up three."

"I write smaller," Manic explained, handing his fork to Amy so she could take her turn at the vegan cassarole they were having for dinner.

"Right before lunch, we compared notes," Sonia continued, "and the two of us had the same idea. So we sneaked away and put our plan into action."

"That's why we weren't at lunch," Manic explained. "You'll notice that there are puddles of beverages on our tray instead of glasses."

"Well, you can share _our_ glasses," Tails said, handing his to Sonia, "just like you're letting us share your silverware. But what is your plan? What did you put into action?"

Manic and Sonia looked at one another, smiled, and leaned in close to the Hedges so they could be sure no one would overhear.

"We propped open the back door of the auditorium," Manic said. He and Sonia smiled triumphantly and leaned back in their chairs. The Hedges did not feel triumphant. They felt confused. They did not want to insult their friends, who had broken the rules and sacrificed their drinking glasses just to help them, but they were unable to see how propping open the back door of the auditorium was a solution to the trouble in which they found themselves.

"I'm sorry," Tails said after a pause. "I don't understand how propping open the back door of the auditorium solves our problem."

"Don't you see?" Sonia asked. "We're going to sit in the back of the auditorium tonight, and as soon as Router begins his concert, we will tiptoe out and sneak over to the front lawn. That way we can keep an eye on you and Coach Genghis. If anything fishy happens, we will run back to the concert and alert Vice Principal Router."

"It's the perfect plan, don't you think?" Manic asked. "I'm rather proud of my sister and me, if I do say so myself."

The Hedge children looked at one another doubtfully. They didn't want to disappoint their friends or criticize the plan that the Quagmire triplets had cooked up, particularly since the Hedges hadn't cooked up any plan themselves. But Count Eggman was so evil and so

clever that the three siblings couldn't help but think that propping a door open and sneaking out to spy on him was not much of a defense against his treachery.

"We appreciate you trying to solve our problem," Tails said gently, "but Count Eggman is an extremely treacherous person. He always has something up his sleeve. I wouldn't want you to get into any danger on our behalf."

"Don't talk nonsense," Sonia said firmly, taking a sip from Tails' glass. "You're the ones in danger, and it's up to us to help you. And we're not frightened of Eggman. I'm confident this plan is a good one."

The Hedges looked at one another again. It was very brave of the Quagmire triplets not to be frightened of Eggman and to be so confident about their plan. But the three siblings could not help but wonder if the Quagmires should be so brave. Eggman was such a wretched man that it seemed wise to be frightened of him, and he had defeated so many of the Hedges' plans that it seemed a little foolish to be so confident about this one. But the children were so appreciative of their friends' efforts that they said nothing more about the matter. In the years to come, the Hedge orphans would regret this, nearly putting , this time when they said nothing more about the matter, but in the meantime they merely finished their dinner with the Quagmires, passing silverware and drinking glasses back and forth and trying to talk about other things. They discussed other projects they might do to improve the Orphans Shack, and what other matters they might research in the library, and what they could do about Sonic's problem with the staples, which were running out quite rapidly, and before they knew it dinner was over. The Quagmires hurried off to the violin recital, promising to sneak out as quickly as they could, and the Hedges walked out of the cafeteria and over to the front lawn.

The last few rays of the sunset made the children cast long, long shadows as they walked, as if the Hedges had been stretched across the brown grass by some horrible mechanical device. The children looked down at their shadows, which looked as flimsy as sheets of paper, and wished with every step that they could do something else- _anything_ else-other than meet Coach Genghis alone on the front lawn. They wished they could just keep walking, under the arch, past the front lawn, and out into the world, but where could they go? The three orphans were all alone in the world. Their parents were dead. Their banker was too busy to take good care of them. And their only friends were two more orphans, who the Hedges sincerely hoped had snuck out of the recital by now and were spying on them as they approached the solitary figure of Coach Genghis, waiting for them impatiently on the edge of the lawn. The waning light of the sunset-the word "waning" here means "dim, and making everything look extra-creepy"-made the shadow of the coach's turban look like a huge, deep hole.

"You're late," Genghis said in his scratchy voice. As the siblings reached him, they could see that he had both hands behind his back as if he were hiding something. "Your instructions were to be here right after dinner, and you're late."

"We're very sorry," Tails said, craning her neck to try and catch a glimpse of what was behind his back. "It took us a little longer to eat our dinner without silverware."

"If you were smart," Genghis said, "you would have borrowed the silverware of one of your friends."

"We never thought of that," Amy said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, one often feels a guilty flutter in one's stomach, and Amy felt such a flutter now. "You certainly are an intelligent man," she continued.

"Not only am I intelligent," Genghis agreed, "but I'm also very smart. Now, let's get right to work. Even stupid children like yourselves should remember what I said about orphans having excellent bone structure for running. That's why you are about to do Special Orphan Running Exercises, or S.O.R.E. for short."

"Ooladu!" Sonic shrieked.

"My brother means that sounds exciting," Tails said, although "Ooladu!" actually meant "I wish you'd tell us what you're _really_ up to, Genghis."

"I'm glad you're so enthusiastic," Genghis said. "In certain cases, enthusiasm can make up for a lack of brainpower." He took his hands from behind his back, and the children saw that he was holding a large metal can and a long, prickly brush. The can was open, and an eerie white glow was shining out of the top. "Now, before we begin S.O.R.E., we'll need a track. This is luminous paint, which means it glows in the dark."

"How interesting," Amy said, although she'd known what the word "luminous" means for five and a half years.

"Well, if you find it so interesting," Genghis said, his eyes looking as luminous as the paint, "you can be in charge of the brush. _Here."_

He thrust the long, prickly brush into Amy's hands. "And you little boys can hold the paint can. I want you to paint a big circle on the grass so you can see where you are running when you start your laps. Go on, what are you waiting for?"

The Hedges looked at one another. What they were waiting for, of course, was Genghis revealing what he was really up to with the paint, the brush, and the ridiculous Special Orphan Running Exercises. But in the meantime, they figured they'd better do as Genghis said. Painting a big, luminous circle on the lawn didn't seem to be particularly dangerous, so Tails picked up the paint can, and Amy dipped the brush into the paint and began making a big circle. For the moment, Sonic was something of a fifth wheel, a phrase which means "not in a position to do anything particularly helpful," but he crawled alongside his siblings, offering moral support.

"Bigger!" Genghis called out in the dark. "Wider!" The Hedges followed his instructions and made the circle bigger and wider, walking farther away from Genghis and leaving a glowing trail of paint. They looked out into the gloom of the evening, wondering where the Quagmire triplets were hiding, or if indeed they had managed to sneak out of the recital at all. But the sun was down now, and the only thing the orphans could see was the bright circle of light they were painting on the lawn and the dim figure of Genghis, his white turban looking like a floating skull in the night. "Bigger! Wider! All right, all right, that's big and wide enough! Finish the circle where I am standing! Hurry up!"

"What do you think we're _really_ doing?" Tails whispered to his sister

"I don't know," Amy said. "I've only read three or four books on paint. I know that paint can sometimes be poisonous or cause birth defects. But Genghis isn't making us eat the circle, and I am certainly not pregnant."

Sonic wanted _to_ add "Gargaba!" which meant "Maybe the luminous paint is serving as some sort of glowing signal," but the Hedges had come full circle and were too close to Genghis to do any more talking.

"I suppose that will do, orphans," Genghis said, snatching the brush and the can of paint out of their hands. "Now, take your marks, and when I blow my whistle, begin running around the circle you've made until I tell you to stop."

"What?" Tails said. As I'm sure you know, there are two types of "What?" in the world. The first type simply means "Excuse me, I didn't hear you. Could you please repeat yourself?" The second type is a little trickier. It means something more along the lines of "Excuse me, I did hear you, but I can't believe that's really what you meant," and this second type is obviously the type Tails was using at this moment. He was standing right next to Genghis, so he'd obviously heard what had come out of the smelly mouth of this miserable man. But he couldn't believe that Genghis was simply going to make them run laps. He was such a sneaky and revolting person that the eldest Hedge simply could not accept that his scheme was only as evil as the average gym class.

 _"What?"_ Genghis repeated in a mocking way. He had obviously taken a page out of Router's book, a phrase which here means "learned how to repeat things in a mocking way, in order to make fun of children." "I know you heard me, little orphan boy. You're standing right next to me. Now take your marks, all of you, and begin running as soon as I blow my whistle."

"Ha! Jalopalika" Sonic said, which probably meant "Running? I love running!"

Genghis seemed to ignore Sonic and said. "Now-on your marks, get set, _go_!"

Genghis blew his whistle and the Hedge orphans began to run, pacing themselves so they could run together even though they had different-sized legs. They finished one lap, and then another, and then another and another and then five more and then another and then seven more and then another and then three more and then two more and then another and then another and then six more and then they lost track. Coach Genghis kept blowing his whistle and occasionally shouted tedious and unhelpful things like "Keep running!" or "Another lap!" The children looked down at the luminous circle so they could stay in a circle, and the children looked over at Genghis as he grew fainter and then clearer as they finished a lap, and the children looked out into the darkness to see if they could catch a glimpse of the Quagmires.

The phrase ' too much of a good thing would suit Sonic in this situation. I had a friend who loved key lime pie, he loved it so much that he would have it everyday. But then his enimeies forced fed him so much key lime pie that when he managed to get out alive, he never wanted to see a key lime pie again. This would suit Sonic as he is beaing made to do the ting he loved so much that he will get tired of it, but as far as I know, he will never stop running.

The Hedges also looked at one another from time to time, but they didn't speak, not even when they were far enough away from Genghis that he could not overhear. One reason they did not speak was to conserve energy, because although the Hedges were in reasonably good shape, they had not run so many laps in their lives, and before too long they were breathing too hard to really discuss anything. But the other reason they did not speak was that Tails had already spoken for (hem when he had asked the second type of "What?" Coach Genghis kept blowing his whistle, and the children kept running around and around

the track, and echoing in each of their minds was this second, trickier type of question. The three siblings had heard Coach Genghis, but they couldn't believe that S.O.R.E. was the extent of his evil plan. The Hedge orphans kept running around the glowing circle until the first rays of sunrise began to reflect on the jewel in Genghis's turban, and all they could think was _What ? What?_ _What?_

 _R_

Eight

 _"What?"_ Sonia asked.

"I said, 'Finally, as the sun rose, Coach Genghis had us stop running laps and let us go to bed,'" Amy said.

"My sister didn't mean that she didn't hear you," Manic explained. "She meant that she heard you, but she didn't believe that's really what you meant. And to tell you the truth, I can scarcely believe it myself, even though I saw it with my own eyes."

"I can't believe it either," Tails said, wincing as he took a bite of the salad that the masked people had served for lunch. It was the next afternoon, and all three Hedge orphans were doing a great deal of wincing, a word which here means "frowning in pain, alarm, or distress." When Coach Genghis had called last night's activities S.O.R.E., he had merely used the name as an acronym for Special Orphan Running Exercises, but the three children thought that the name S.O.R.E. was even more appropriate than that. After a full night of S.O.R.E., they'd been sore all day. Their legs were sore from all their running. When they'd finally entered the Orphans Shack to go to sleep, they had been too tired to put on their noisy shoes, so their toes were sore from the claws of the tiny territorial crabs. And their heads were sore, not only from headaches, which often occur when one doesn't get enough sleep, but also from trying to figure out what Coach Genghis was up to in making them run all those laps. The Hedge legs were sore, the Hedge toes were sore, the Hedge heads were sore, and soon the muscles on the sides of the Hedge mouths would be sore from wincing all day long.

It was lunchtime, and the three children were trying to discuss the previous evening with the Quagmire triplets, who weren't very sore and not nearly as tired. One reason was that they had been hiding behind the archway, spying on Genghis and the Hedges, instead of running around and around the luminous circle. The other reason was that the Quagmires had done their spying in shifts. After the Hedges had run the first few laps and there was no sign of them stopping, the two triplets had decided to alternate between Manic sleeping and Sonia spying, and Manic spying and Sonia sleeping. The two siblings promised each other that they would wake up the sleeping one if the spying one noticed anything unusual.

"I had the last shift," Manic explained, "so my sister didn't see the end of S.O.R.E. But it doesn't matter. All that happened was that Coach Genghis had you stop running laps and let you go to bed. I thought that he might insist on getting your fortune before you could stop running."

"And I thought that the luminous circle would serve as a landing strip," Sonia said, "for a helicopter, piloted by one of his assistants, to swoop down and take you away. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why you had to run all those laps before the helicopter showed up."

"But the helicopter didn't show up," Amy said, taking a sip of water and wincing. "Nothing showed up."

"Maybe the pilot got lost," Sonia said.

"Or maybe Coach Genghis became as tired as you did, and forgot to ask for your fortune," Manic said.

Tails shook his sore head. "He would never get too tired to get our fortune," he said. "He's up to something, that much is for sure, but I just can't figure out what it is."

"Of course you can't figure it out," Manic said. "You're exhausted. I'm glad Sonia and I thought of spying in shifts. We're going to use all our spare time to investigate. We'll go through all of our notes, and do some more research in the library. There must be something that can help us figure it out."

"I'll do research, too," Amy said, yawning. "I'm quite good at it."

"I know you are," Manic said, smiling. "But not today, Amy. We'll work on uncovering Genghis's plan, and you three can catch up on your sleep. You're too tired to do much good in a library or anywhere else."

Tails and Amy looked at each other's tired faces, and then down at their baby brother, and they saw that the Quagmire triplets were right. Tails had been so tired that he had taken only a few notes on Mr. Bean Remora's painfully dull stories. Amy had been so tired that she had incorrectly measured nearly all of Mrs. Mina Bass's objects. And although Sonic had not reported what he had done that morning in Router's office, he couldn't have been a very good administrative assistant, because he had fallen asleep right there in the cafeteria, his little head on her salad, as if it were a soft pillow instead of leaves of lettuce, slices of tomato, gobs of creamy honey-mustard dressing, and crispy croutons, which are small toasted pieces of bread that give a salad some added crunch. Tails gently lifted his brother's head out of the salad and shook a few croutons out of his hair. Sonic winced, made a faint, miserable noise,

and went back to sleep in Tails' lap. "Perhaps you're right, Manic," Tails said. "We'll stumble through the afternoon somehow and get a good night's sleep tonight. If we're lucky, Vice Principal Router will play something quiet at tonight's concert and we can sleep through that as well."

You can see, with that last sentence, just how tired Tails really was, because "if we're lucky" is not a phrase that he, or either of his siblings, used very often. The reason, of course, is quite clear: the Hedge orphans were not lucky.

Smart, yes. Charming, yes. Able to survive austere situations, yes. But the children were not lucky, and so wouldn't use the phrase "if we're lucky" any more than they would use the phrase "if we're stalks of celery," because neither phrase was appropriate. If the Hedge orphans had been stalks of celery, they would not have been small children in great distress, and if they had been lucky, Sally Spats would not have approached their table at this particular moment and delivered another unfortunate message.

"Hello, you cakesniffers," she said, "although judging from the baby brat you're more like saladsniffers. I have another message for you from Coach Genghis. I get to be his Special Messenger because I'm the cutest, prettiest, nicest little girl in the whole school."

"If you were really the nicest person in the whole school," Sonia said, "you wouldn't make fun of a sleeping infant. But never mind, what is the message?"

"It's actually the same one as last time," Sally said, "but I'll repeat it in case you're too stupid to remember. The three Hedge orphans are to report to the front lawn tonight, immediately after dinner."

"What?" Amy asked.

"Are you _deaf_ as well as cakesniffy?" Sally asked. "I said-"

"Yes, yes, Amy heard you," Manic said quickly. "She didn't mean that kind of 'What?' We have received the message, Sally. Now please go away."

"That's two tips you owe me," Sally said, but she flounced off.

"I can't believe it," Tails said. "Not more laps! My legs are almost too sore to walk, let alone run."

"Sally didn't say anything about more laps," Manic pointed out.

"Maybe Coach Genghis is putting his real plan into action tonight. In any case, we'll sneak out of the recital again and keep an eye on you."

"In shifts," Sonia added, nodding in agreement. "And I bet we'll have a clear picture of his plan by then. We have the rest of the day to do research." Sonia paused, and flipped open her black notebook to the right page. She read,

 _''Don't worry Hedges, don't feel disgrace_ -

 _The Quagmire triplets are on the case."_

"Thank you," Tails said, giving Sonia a tired smile of appreciation. "My siblings and I are thankful for all your help. And we're going to put our minds to the problem, even though we're too exhausted to do research. If we're lucky, all of us working together can defeat Coach Genghis."

There was that phrase again, "if we're lucky," coming out of the mouth of a Hedges, and once again it felt about as appropriate as "if we're stalks of celery." The only difference was that the Hedge orphans did not wish to be stalks of celery. While it is true that if they were stalks of celery they would not be orphans because celery is a plant and so cannot really be said to have parents, Tails, Amy and Sonic did not wish to be the stringy, low-calorie vegetable. Unfortunate things can happen to celery as easily as they can happen to children. Celery can be sliced into small pieces and dipped into clam dip at fancy parties. It can be coated in peanut butter and served as a snack. It can merely sit in a field and rot away, if the nearby celery farmers are lazy or on vacation. All these terrible things can happen to celery, and the orphans knew it, so if you were to ask the Hedges if they wanted to be stalks of celery they would say of course not. But they wanted to be lucky. The Hedges did not necessarily want to be extremely lucky, like someone who finds a treasure map or someone who wins a lifetime supply of ice cream in a contest. But the Hedges wanted to be lucky enough. They wanted to be lucky enough to figure out how to escape Coach Genghis's clutches, and it seemed that being lucky would be their only chance. Tails was too tired to invent anything, and Amy was too tired to read anything, and Sonic, still asleep in Tails' lap, was too tired to bite anything or anybody, or even run, and it seemed that even with the diligence of the Quagmire triplets-the word "diligence" here means "ability to take good notes in dark green and purple notebooks"- they needed to be lucky if they wanted to stay alive. The Hedges huddled together as if the cafeteria were extremely cold, wincing in soreness and worry. It seemed to the Hedge orphans that they wanted to be lucky more than they had in their entire lives.

 _Occasionally_ _,_ events in one's life become clearer through the prism of experience, a phrase which simply means that things tend to become clearer as time goes on. For instance, when a person is just born, they usually have no idea what curtains are and spend a great deal of their first months wondering why on earth Mommy and Daddy have hung large pieces of

cloth over each window in the nursery. But as the person grows older, the idea of curtains becomes clearer through the prism of experience. The person will learn the word "curtains" and notice that they are actually quite handy for keeping a room dark when it is time to sleep, and for decorating an otherwise boring window area. Eventually, they will entirely accept the idea of curtains, and may even purchase some curtains of their own, or Venetian blinds, and it is all due to the prism of experience.

Coach Genghis's S.O.R.E. program, however, was one event that didn't seem to get any clearer at all through the Hedge orphans' prism of experience. If anything, it grew even harder and harder to understand, because Tails, Amy and Sonic became so utterly exhausted as the days-and, more particularly, the nights wore on. After the children received their second message from Sally Spats, they spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what Coach Genghis would make them do that evening. The Quagmire triplets wondered along with them, so everyone was surprised-the Hedges, who met Genghis out on the front lawn after dinner again, and the Quagmires, who tiptoed out of the recital and spied on them, in shifts, from behind the archway again-when Genghis began blowing his whistle and ordered the Hedge orphans to begin running. The Hedges and Quagmires thought that surely Genghis would do something far more sinister than more laps.

But while a second evening of running laps might have lacked in sinisterity, Tails, Amy and Sonic were too exhausted to notice. They could scarcely hear the shrieks of Genghis's whistle and his cries of "Keep running!" and "Another lap!" over the sound of their own desperate panting for breath. They grew so sweaty that the orphans thought they would give up the entire Hedge fortune for a good long shower. And their legs grew so sore that the children forgot, even with their prism of experience, what it felt like to have legs that didn't ache from thigh to toe.

Lap after lap the Hedges ran, hardly taking their eyes off the circle of luminous paint that still glowed brightly on the darkening lawn, and staring at this circle was somehow the worst part of all. As the evening turned to night, the luminous circle was all the Hedges could really see, and it imprinted itself into their eyes so they could see it even when they were staring desperately into the darkness. If you've ever had a flash photograph taken, and the blob of the flash has stayed in your view for a few moments afterward, then you are familiar with what was happening to the Hedges, except the glowing circle stayed in their minds for so long that it became symbolic. The word "symbolic" here means that the glowing circle felt like it stood for more than merely a track, and what it stood for was zero. The luminous zero glowed in the Hedges minds, and it was symbolic of what they knew of their situation. They knew zero about what Genghis was up to. They knew zero about why they were running endless laps. And they had zero energy to think about it.

Finally, the sun began to rise, and Coach Genghis dismissed his orphan track team. The Hedges stumbled blearily to the Orphans Shack, too tired to even see if Manic and Sonia were sneaking back to their dormitory after their last shift of spying. Once again, the three siblings were too tired to put on their noisy shoes, so their toes were doubly sore when they awoke, just two hours later, to begin another groggy day. But-and I shudder to tell you this-this was not the last groggy day for the Hedge orphans. The dreadful Sally Spats delivered them the usual message at lunch, after they spent the morning dozing through classes and secretarial duties, and the Hedges put their heads on the cafeteria table in despair at the idea of another night of running. The Quagmires tried to comfort them, promising to double their research efforts, but Tails, Amy and Sonic were too tired for

conversation, even with their closest friends. Luckily, their closest friends understood completely and didn't find the Hedges silence rude or discouraging.

It seems impossible to believe that the three Hedges managed to survive another evening of S.O.R.E., but in times of extreme stress one can often find energy hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body. I discovered this myself when I was woken up in the middle of the night and chased sixteen miles by an angry mob armed with torches, swords, and vicious dogs, and the Hedge orphans discovered it as they ran laps, not only for that night but also for six nights following. This made a grand total of nine S.O.R.E. sessions, although "grand" would seem to be the wrong word for endless evenings of desperate panting, sweaty bodies, and achy legs. For nine nights, the Hedge brains were plagued with the symbolic, luminous zero glowing in their minds like a giant donut of despair.

As the Hedge orphans suffered, their schoolwork suffered with them. As I'm sure you know, a good night's sleep helps you perform well in school, and so if you are a student you should always get a good night's sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means "flunk." In the days that followed, the Hedge were much more exhausted than somebody who had stayed up all night reading, and their schoolwork did more than fall by the wayside. It fell _off the_ wayside, a phrase which here has different meanings for each child. For Tails, it meant that he was so drowsy that he did not write down a single word of Mr. Bean Remora's stories. For Amy, it meant that she was so weary that she didn't measure a single one of Mrs. Mina Bass's objects. And for Sonic, it meant that he was so exhausted that he didn't do anything Vice Principal Router assigned him to do. The Hedge orphans believed that doing well in school was extremely important, even if the school happened to be run by a tyrannical idiot, but they were simply too fatigued from their nightly laps to do their assigned work. Before long, the circle of luminous paint was not the only zero the Hedge saw. Tails saw a zero at the top of his paper when he was unable to recall any of Mr. Bean Remora's stories for a test. Amy saw a zero in Mrs. Mina Bass's gradebook when she was called on to report the exact length of a tube sock she was supposed to be measuring and was discovered to be taking a nap instead. And Sonic saw a zero when he checked the staple drawer and saw that there were zero staples inside.

"This is getting ridiculous," Sonia said when Tails updated his siblings and friends at the start of another weary lunch. "Look at you, Sonic. It was inappropriate to hire you as an administrative assistant in the first place, and it's simply absurd to have you run laps by night and make your own staples by day."

"Don't call my brother absurd or ridiculous!" Amy cried.

"I'm not calling _him_ ridiculous!" Sonia said. "I'm calling the _situation_ ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous means you want to laugh at it," said Amy, who was never too tired to define

words, "and I don't want you laughing at us."

"I'm not laughing at you," Sonia said. "I'm trying to help."

Tails snatched his drinking glass from Sonia's side of the table. "Well, laughing at us doesn't help at all, you cakesniffer."

snatched her silverware from Tails' hands. "Calling me names doesn't help either, Tails."

"Mumdum!" Sonic shrieked.

"Oh, stop it, both of you," Manic said. "Sonia, can't you see that Tails is just tired?

And Tails, can't you see that Sonia is just frustrated?"

Tails took his glasses off and returned his drinking glass to Sonia. "I'm too tired to see anything," he said. "I'm sorry, Sonia. Being tired makes me crabby. In a few days I'll turn as nasty as Sally Spats."

Sonia handed her silverware back to Tails and patted him on the hand in forgiveness. "You'll never be as nasty as Sally Spats," she said.

"Sally Spats?" Amy said, lifting her head from her tray. She had dozed through Sonia and Tails' argument but woken up at the sound of the Special Messenger's name. "She's not coming here again to tell us to do laps, is she?"

"I'm afraid she is," Manic said ruefully, a word which here means "while pointing at a rude, violent, and filthy little girl."

"Hello, cakesniffers," Sally Spats said. "Today I have two messages for you, so I should really get two tips instead of one."

"Oh, Sally," Amy said. "You haven't gotten a tip for the last nine days, and I see no reason to break that tradition."

"That's because you're a stupid orphan," Sally Spats said promptly. "In any case, message number one is the usual: meet Coach Genghis on the front lawn right after dinner."

Tails gave an exhausted groan. "And what's the second message?" he asked.

"The second message is that you must report to Vice Principal Router's office right away."

"Vice Principal Router's office?" Amy asked. "Why?"

"I'm sorry," Sally Spats said with a nasty smile to indicate that she wasn't sorry one bit. "I don't answer questions from nontipping orphan cakesniffers."

Some children at the neighboring table laughed when they heard that and began banging their silverware on the table. "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack!" they chanted as Sally Spats giggled and skipped off to finish her lunch. "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack!" they chanted while the Hedges sighed and stood up on their aching legs. "We'd better go to Router's," Tails said. "We'll see you later, Manic and Sonia."

"Nonsense," Manic said. "We'll walk you. Sally Spats has made me lose my appetite, so we'll skip lunch and take you to the administrative building. We won't go inside-

otherwise there'll be no silverware between the five of us but we'll wait outside and you can tell us what's going on."

"I wonder what Router wants," Tails said, yawning.

"Maybe he's discovered that Genghis is really Eggman, all by himself," Sonia said, and the Hedges smiled back. They didn't dare hope that this was the reason for their summons to Router's office, but they appreciated their friends' hopefulness. The five children handed their scarcely eaten lunches to the cafeteria workers, who blinked at them silently from behind their metal masks, and walked to the administrative-building. The Quagmire triplets wished the Hedges luck, and Tails, Amy and Sonic trudged up the steps to Router's office.

"Thank you for taking the time out of your busy orphan schedule to see me," Vice Principal Router said, yanking open his door before they could knock. "Hurry up and come inside. Every minute I spend talking to you is a minute I could spend practicing the violin, and when you're a musical genius like me, every minute counts."

The three children walked into the tiny office and began clapping their tired hands together as Router raised both his arms in the air.

"There are two things I wanted to talk to you about," he said when the applause was over. "Do you know what they are?"

"No, sir," Tails replied.

 _"No, sir,"_ Router mimicked, although he looked disappointed that the children hadn't given him a longer answer to make fun of. "Well, the first one is that the three of you have missed nine of my violin concerts, and each of you owes me a bag of candy for each one. Nine bags of candy times three equals twenty nine. In addition, Sally Spats has told me that she has delivered ten messages to you, if you include the two she delivered today, and that you've never given her a tip. That's a disgrace. Now, I think a nice tip is a pair of earrings with precious stones, so you owe her ten pairs of earrings. What do you have to say about that?"

The Hedge orphans looked at one another with their sleepy, sleepy eyes. They had nothing to say about that. They had plenty to _think_ about that – that they'd only missed Router's concerts because Coach Genghis had forced them to, that nine bags of candy times three equals twenty-seven, not twenty-nine, and that tips are always optional and usually consist of money instead of earrings – but Tails, Amy and Sonic were too tired to say anything about it at all. This was another disappointment to Vice Principal Router, who stood there scratching his pigtails and waiting for one of the children to say something that he could repeat in his nasty, mocking voice. But after a moment of silence, the vice principal went on to the second thing. "The second thing," he said, going on, "is that you three have become the worst students Prufrock Preparatory School has ever seen. Tails, Mr. Bean Remora tells me that you have flunked a test. Amy, Mrs. Bass reports that you can scarcely tell one end of a metric ruler from another. And Sonic, I've noticed that you haven't made a single staple! Mr. Silver Poe told me you were intelligent and hardworking children, but you're just a bunch of cakesniffers!"

At this, the Hedges could keep quiet no longer. "We're flunking school because we're exhausted!" Tails cried.

"And we're exhausted because we're running laps every night!" Amy cried. "Galuka!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "So yell at Coach Genghis, not at us!"

Vice Principal Router gave the children a big smile, delighted that he was able to answer them in his favorite way. _"We're flunking school because we're exhausted!"_ he squealed. _"And we're exhausted because we're running laps every night! Galuka!_ I've had enough of your nonsense! Prufrock Preparatory School has promised you an excellent education, and an excellent education you will get, in Sonic's case, an excellent job as an administrative assistant! Now, I've instructed Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass to give comprehensive exams tomorrow large tests on absolutely everything you've learned so far Tails you'd better remember every detail of Mr. Bean Remora's stories. Amy, you'd better remember the length, width, and depths of Mrs. Mina Bass's objects, and, or I will expel you from school. Also, I've found a bunch of papers that need to be stapled tomorrow. Sonic, you will staple all of them, with homemade staples, or I will expel you from your job. First thing tomorrow morning we will have the test and the stapling, and if you don't get As and make enough staples, you'll leave Prufrock Preparatory School . Luckily for you, Coach Genghis has offered to home-school you. That means he'd be your coach, your teacher, and your guardian, all in one. It's a very geRouterus offer, and if I were you I'd give _him_ a tip, too, although I don't think earrings are appropriate in this case."

"We're not going to give Count Eggman a tip!" Tails blurted out.

Amy looked at her older brother in horror. "Tails means Coach Genghis," Amy said quickly to Router.

"I _do not\"_ Tails cried. "Amy, our situation is too desperate to pretend not to recognize him any longer!"

"Hifijoo!" Sonic agreed.

"I guess you're right," Amy said. "What have we got to lose?"

 _"What have we got to lose?"_ Router mocked. "What are you talking about?"

"We're talking about Coach Genghis," Tails said. "He's not really named Genghis. He's not even a real coach. He's Count Eggman in disguise."

"Nonsense!" Router said.

Amy wanted to say _"Nonsense!"_ right back at Router, in Router's own repulsive way, but she bit her exhausted tongue. "It's true," she said. "He's put a turban over his eyebrow and expensive running shoes over his tattoo, but he's still Count Eggman."

"He has a turban for religious reasons," Router said, "and running shoes because he's a coach. Look here." He strode over to the computer and pressed a button. The screen began to glow in its usual seasick way, and once again showed a picture of Count Eggman. "You see? Coach Genghis looks nothing like Count Eggman, and my advanced computer system proves it."

"Ushilo!" Sonic cried, which meant "That doesn't prove anything!"

 _"Ushilo!"_ Router mocked. "Who am I going to believe, an advanced computer system or two children flunking school and a little baby too dumb to make her own staples? Now, stop wasting my time! I will personally oversee tomorrow's comprehensive exams, which will be given in the Orphans Shack! And you'd better do excellent work, or it's a free ride from Coach Genghis! Sayonara, Hedges!"

"Sayonara" is the Japanese word for goodbye, and I'm sure that each and every one of the millions of people who live in Japan would be ashamed to hear their language used by such a revolting person. But the Hedge orphans had no time to think such international thoughts. They were too busy giving the Quagmire triplets the latest news.

"This is awful!" Manic cried as the five children trudged across the lawn so they could talk things over in peace. "There's no way you can get an A on those exams, particularly if you have to run laps tonight!"

"This is dreadful!" Sonia cried. "There's no way you can make all those staples, either!

You'll be homeschooled before you know it!"

"Coach Genghis won't homeschool us," Tails said, looking out at the front lawn, where the luminous zero was waiting for them. "He'll do something much, much worse. Don't you see? That's why he's made us run all those laps! He _knew_ we'd be exhausted. He _knew_ we'd flunk our classes, or fail to perform our secretarial duties. He _knew_ we'd be expelled from Prufrock Prep, and then he could get his hands on us."

Amy groaned. "We've been waiting for his plan to be made clear, and now it is. But it might be too late."

"It's not too late," Tails insisted. "The comprehensive exams aren't until tomorrow morning. We must be able to figure out a plan by then."

"Plan!" Sonic agreed.

"It'll have to be a complicated plan," Manic said. "We have to get Tails ready for Mrs. Mina Bass' test and Amy for Mr. Bean Remora's test."

"And we have to make staples," Sonia said. "And the Hedges still have to run laps." "And we have to stay awake," Amy said.

The children looked at one another, and then out at the front lawn. The afternoon sun was shining brightly, but the five youngsters knew that soon it would set behind the tombstone- shaped buildings, and that it would be time for S.O.R.E. They didn't have much time. Tails tied his bang up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. Amy polished his glasses and set them on his nose. Sonic scraped his teeth together, to make sure they were sharp enough for any task ahead, but was too tired to run. And the two triplets took their notebooks out of their sweater pockets. Coach Genghis's evil plan had become clear through the prism of the Hedge and Quagmire experiences, and now they had to use their experience to make a plan of their own.

 _R_

Ten

 _The_ three Hedge orphans and the two Quagmire triplets sat in the Orphans Shack, which had never looked less unpleasant than it did now. All five children were wearing the noisy shoes Tails had invented, so the territorial crabs were nowhere to be seen. The salt had dried up the dripping tan fungus into a hard beige crust that was not particularly attractive but at least did not _plop!_ drops of fungus juice on the youngsters. Because the arrival of Coach Genghis had focused their energies on defeating his treachery, the five orphans hadn't done anything about the green walls with the pink hearts on them, but otherwise the Orphans Shack had become quite a bit less mountainous and quite a bit more molehilly since the Hedges' arrival. It still had a long way to go to be attractive and comfortable living quarters, but for thinking of a plan, it would do in a pinch.

And the Hedge children were certainly in a pinch. If Tails, Amy and Sonic spent one more exhausting night running laps, they would flunk their comprehensive exams and secretarial assignment, and then Coach Genghis would whisk them away from Prufrock Prep, and as they thought of this they could almost feel Genghis's bony fingers pinching the life right out of them. The Quagmire triplets were so worried about their friends that they felt pinched as well, even though they were not directly in danger-or so they thought, anyway.

"I can't believe we didn't figure out Coach Genghis's plan earlier," Sonia said mournfully, paging through her notebook. "Manic and I did all this research, and we still didn't figure it out."

"Don't feel badly," Amy said. "My brothers and I have had many encounters with Eggman, and it's always difficult to figure out his scheme."

"We were trying to find out the history of Count Eggman," Manic said. "The Prufrock Preparatory library has a pretty good collection of old newspapers, and we thought if we could find out some of his other schemes, we might figure out this one."

"That's a good idea," Amy said thoughtfully. "I've never tried that."

"We figured that Eggman must have been an evil man even before he met you," Manic continued, "so we looked up things in old newspapers. But it was difficult to find too many articles, because as you know he always uses a different name. But we found a person

matching his description in the _Bangkok Gazette,_ who was arrested for strangling a bishop but escaped from prison in just ten minutes."

"That sounds like him, all right," Amy said.

"And then in the _Verona Daily News,"_ Manic said, "there was a man who had thrown a rich widow off of a cliff. He had a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, but he had eluded authorities. And then we found a newspaper from your hometown that said-"

"I don't mean to interrupt," Sonia said, "but we'd better stop thinking about the past and start thinking about the present. Lunchtime is more than half over, and we desperately need a plan."

"You're not napping, are you?" Amy asked Tails, who had been silent for a very long time.

"Of course I'm not napping," Tails replied. "I'm concentrating. I think I can invent something to make all those staples Sonic needs. But I can't figure out how I can invent the device and study for the test at the same time. Since S.O.R.E. began, I haven't taken good notes in Mr. Bean Remora's class, so I won't be able to remember his stories."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that," Sonia said, holding up her purple notebook. "I've written down all of Mr. Bean Remoras' boring stories. It's is recorded here in my notebook."

"And I've written down all of Mrs. Mina Bass' mesurments," Manic said, holding up his own notebook. "You can study from my notebook, Amy, and Tails can study from Sonia's."

"Thank you," Amy said, "but you're forgetting something. We're supposed to be running laps this evening. We don't have time to read anybody's notebook."

"Tarcour," Sonic said, which meant "You're right, of course. S.O.R.E. always lasts until dawn, and the tests are first thing in the morning."

"If only we had one of the world's great inventors to help us," Tails said. "I wonder what Nikola Tesla would do."

"Or one of the world's great journalists," Manic said. "I wonder what Dorothy Parker would do in this situation."

"And I wonder what Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian, would do to help us," Amy said. "He was one of the world's greatest researchers."

"Or the great poet Lord Byron," Sonia said.

"Shark, Jessie Owens" Sonic said, rubbing his teeth thoughtfully, and shuffling his feet.

"Who knows what any of those people or fish would do in our shoes?" Tails said. "It's impossible to know."

Manic snapped his fingers, not to signal a waiter or because he was listening to catchy music but because he had an idea. "In our shoes!" he said. "That's it!"

"What's it?" Amy asked. "How will our noisy shoes help?"

"No, no," Manic said. "Not the noisy shoes. I'm thinking about Coach Genghis's expensive running shoes that he said he couldn't take off because his feet were smelly."

"And I bet they _are_ smelly," Sonia said. "I've noticed he doesn't bathe much."

"But that's not why he wears them," Tails said. "He wears them for a disguise."

"Exactly!" Manic said. "When you said 'in your shoes,' it gave me an idea. I know you just meant 'in our shoes' as an expression meaning 'in our situation.' But what if someone else were actually in your shoes-what if we disguised ourselves as you? Then we could run laps, and you could study for the comprehensive exams."

"Disguise yourselves as us?" Amy said. "You two look exactly like each other, but you don't look anything like us."

"So what?" Manic said. "It'll be dark tonight. When we've watched you from the archway, all we could see were two shadowy figures running-and one crawling."

"That's true," Sonia said. "If I took Amy's glasses, and Manic took Tails' glasses and his ribbion, and trimmed his hair a bit, we'd look enough like you that I bet Coach Genghis couldn't tell. Well"

"And we could switch shoes, so your running on the grass would sound exactly the same," Manic said.

"But what about Sonic?" Tails asked. "There's no way two people could disguise themselves as three people. And what about my tails?"

The Quagmire triplets' faces fell. "If only Shadow were here," Manic said. "I just know he'd be willing to dress up as a baby if it meant helping you."

"What about a bag of flour?" Sonia asked. "Sonic's only about as big as a bag of flour- nothing personal, Sonic."

"Denada," Sonic said, shrugging.

"We could snitch a bag from the cafeteria," Sonia said, "and drag it alongside us as we ran. From a distance, it would probably look enough like Sonic to avoid suspicion."

"I've got an idea on what to do for how Manic can disguise himself with 2 tails, but being in each other's shoes seems like an extremely risky plan," Tails said. "If it fails, not only are we in trouble but you are as well, and who knows what Coach Genghis will do to you?"

This, as it turns out, was a question that would haunt the Hedge for quite some time, but the Quagmires gave it barely a thought, but it will come back to them. "Don't worry about that," Manic said. "The important thing is to keep you out of his clutches. It may be a risky plan, but being in each other's shoes is the only thing we've been able to think of."

"And we don't have any time to waste thinking of anything else," Sonia added. "We'd better hurry if we want to snitch the bag of flour and not be late for class."

"And we'll need a string, or something, so we can drag it along and make it look like Sonic crawling," Manic said.

"And I'll need to snitch some things, too," Tails said, "for my staple-making invention, and the 2 tail disguse."

"Nidop," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "Then let's get moving."

The five children walked out of the Orphans Shack, taking off their noisy shoes and putting on their regular shoes so they wouldn't make a lot of noise as they walked nervously across the lawn to the cafeteria. They were nervous because they were not supposed to be sneaking into the cafeteria, or snitching things, and they were nervous because their plan was indeed a risky one. It is not a pleasant feeling, nervousness, and I would not wish for small children to be any more nervous than the Hedges and the Quagmires were as they walked toward the cafeteria in their regular shoes. But I must say that the children weren't nervous enough. They didn't need to be more nervous about sneaking into the cafeteria, even though it was against the rules, or snitching things, even though they didn't get caught. But they should have been more nervous about their plan, and about what would happen that evening when the sun set on the brown lawn and the luminous circle began to glow. They should have been nervous, now, in their regular shoes, about what would happen when they were in each other's.

 _R_

Eleven

 _If_ you've ever dressed up for Halloween or attended a masquerade, you know that there is a certain thrill to wearing a disguise-a thrill that is half excitement and half danger. I once attended one of the famed masked balls hosted by the mayor of Seatte, and it was one of the most exciting and dangerous evenings of my life. I was disguised as a bullfighter, (even though I was only a teenager,) and slipped into the party while being pursued by the palace guards, who were disguised as

scorpions. The moment I entered the Grand Ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before-a scarlet cape made of silk and a vest embroidered with gold thread and a skinny black mask-and it made me feel as if I were a different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to approach for the rest of my life. She was alone on the veranda-the word "veranda" is a fancy term for a porch made of polished gray marble-and costumed as a dragonfly, with a glittering green mask and enormous silvery wings. As my pursuers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to the veranda and gave her the message I'd been trying to give her for fifteen long and lonely years. "Cream," I cried, just as the scorpions spotted me, "Count -"

I cannot go on. It makes me weep to think of that evening, and of the dark and desperate times that followed, and in the meantime I'm sure you are curious what happened to the Hedge orphans and the Quagmire triplets, after dinner that evening at Prufrock Prep.

"This is sort of exciting," Manic said, putting Tails' glasses on his face, still covered with some hair from some sisors that they found. "I know that we're doing this for serious reasons, but I'm excited anyway."

Sonia recited, while polishing Amy's glasses,

 _"It may not be particularly wise, but it's a thrill to be disguised."_

"That's not a perfect poem, but it will have to do under the circumstances. How do we look?"

The Hedge orphans took a step back and regarded the Quagmires carefully. It was just after dinner, and the children were standing outside the Orphans Shack, hurriedly putting their risky plan into action. They had managed to sneak into the cafeteria and steal a Sonic- sized bag of flour from the kitchen while the metal-masked cafeteria workers' backs were turned. Tails had also snitched a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, a small potato, food clouring and some rubber bands, all of which he needed for her invention. Now they had just a few moments before the Hedges or, in this case, the Quagmires in disguise-had to show up for S.O.R.E. Manic and Sonia handed over their notebooks so the Hedges could study for their comprehensive exams, and switched shoes so the Quagmires' laps would sound exactly like the Hedges. Now, with only seconds to spare, the Hedges looked over the Quagmires' disguise and realized instantly just how risky this plan was.

Manic and Sonia Quagmire simply did not look very much like Tails and Amy Hedge. Manic's eyes were of a different color from Tails', and his 2 tails were hay painted yellow, (which they got from the freindly art teacher Zooey in room 4, whom after good reaserch, I find would be a better teacher.) held together with rubber bands and other stuff, and Sonia had different hair from Amy, even if it was tied up in a similar way.

Being triplets, the Quagmires were the exact same height, but Tails was taller than Amy because he was older, and there was no time to make small stilts for Manic to mimic this height difference. But it wasn't really these small physical details that made the disguise so unconvincing. It was the simple fact that the Hedges and the Quagmires were different people, and a hair ribbon, 2 pairs of glasses, a bundle of hay and some shoes couldn't turn them into one another any more than a woman disguised as a dragonfly can actually take wing and escape the disaster awaiting her.

"I know we don't look much like you," Manic admitted after the Hedges had been quiet for some time. "But remember, it's quite dark on the front lawn. The only light is coming from the luminous circle. We'll make sure to keep our heads down when we're running, so our faces won't give us away. We won't speak a word to Coach Genghis, so our voices won't give us away. And we have your hair ribbon, glasses, and shoes, so our accessories won't give us away, either."

"We don't have to go through with this plan," Tails said quietly. "We appreciate your help, but we don't have to try and fool Genghis. My siblings and I could just run away right now, tonight. We've gotten to be pretty good runners, so we'd have a good head start on Coach Genghis."

"We could call Mr. Silver Poe from a pay phone somewhere," Amy said.

"Zubu," Sonic said, which meant "Or attend a different school, under different names."

"Those plans don't have a chance of working," Sonia said. "From what you've told us

about Mr. Silver Poe, he's not very helpful. And Count Eggman seems to find you wherever you go, so a different school wouldn't help, either."

"This is our only chance," Manic agreed. "If you pass the exams without arousing Genghis's suspicion, you will be out of danger, and then we can focus our efforts on exposing the coach for who he really is."

"I suppose you're right," Tails said. "I just don't like the idea of your putting your lives in such danger, just to help us."

"What are friends for?" Sonia said. "We're not going to attend some silly recital while you run laps to your doom. You three were the first people at Prufrock Prep who weren't mean to us just for being orphans. None of us have any family, so we've got to stick together."

"At least let us go with you to the front lawn," Tails said. "We'll spy on you from the archway, and make sure you're fooling Coach Genghis."

Manic shook his head. "You don't have time to spy on us," he said. "You have to make staples out of those metal rods and study for two comprehensive exams."

"Oh!" Sonia said suddenly. "How will we drag this bag of flour along the track? We need a string or something."

"We could just kick it around the circle," Manic said.

"No, no, no," Amy said. "If Coach Genghis thinks you're kicking your baby sister, he'll know something is up."

"I know!" Tails said. He leaned forward and put his hand on Manic's chest, running his fingers along his thick wool sweater until he found what he was looking for-a loose thread. Carefully, he pulled, unraveling the sweater slightly until he had a good long piece

of yarn. Then she snapped it off and tied one end around the bag of flour. The other end she handed to Manic . "This should do it," he said. "Sorry about your sweater."

"I'm sure you can invent a sewing machine," he said, "when we're all out of danger. Well, we'd better go, Sonia. Coach Genghis will be waiting. Good luck with studying."

"Good luck with running laps," Amy said.

The Hedges took a long look at their friends. They were reminded of the last time they saw their parents, waving good-bye to them as they left for the beach. They had not known, of course, that it would be the last moment they would spend with their mother and father, and again and again, each of the Hedges had gone back to that day in their lives, wishing that they had said something more than a casual good-bye. Tails, Amy and Sonic looked at the two triplets and hoped that this was not such a time, a time when people they cared for would disappear from their lives forever. But what if it were?

"If we never see-" Tails stopped, swallowed, and began again. "If something goes wrong-"

Sonia took Tails' hands and looked right at him. Tails saw, behind Amy's glasses, the serious look in Sonia's wide eyes. "Nothing will go wrong," she said firmly, though of course she was wrong at that very moment. "Nothing will go wrong at all. We'll see you in the morning, Hedges."

Sonia nodded solemnly and followed her brother and the bag of flour away from the Orphans Shack. The Hedge orphans watched them walk toward the front lawn until the triplets were merely two specks, dragging another speck along with them.

"You know," Amy said, as they watched them, "from a distance, in the dim light, they look quite a bit like us."

"Abax," Sonic agreed.

"I hope so," Tails murmured. "I hope so. But in the meantime, we'd better stop thinking about them and get started on our half of the plan. Let's put our noisy shoes on and go into the shack."

"I can't imagine how you're going to make staples," Amy said, "with only a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, and a small potato. That sounds more like the ingredients for a side dish than for a staple-making device. I hope your inventing skills haven't been dulled by a lack of sleep."

"I don't think they have," Tails said. "It's amazing how much energy you can have once you have a plan. Besides, my plan doesn't only involve the things I snitched. It involves one of the Orphan Shack crabs and our noisy shoes. Now, when we all have our shoes on, please follow my instructions."

The two younger Hedges were quite puzzled at this, but they had learned long ago that when it came to inventions, Tails could be trusted absolutely. In the recent past, he had invented a grappling hook, a lockpick, and a signaling device, and now, come hell or high

water-an expression which here means "using a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, a small potato, a live crab, and noisy shoes"-he was going to invent a staple-making device.

The three siblings put on their shoes and, following Tails' instructions, entered the shack. As usual, the tiny crabs were lounging around, taking advantage of their time alone in the shack when they wouldn't be frightened by loud noises. On most occasions, the Hedges would stomp wildly on the floor when they entered the shack, and the crabs would scurry underneath the bales of hay and into other hiding places in the room. This time, however, Tails instructed his siblings to step on the floor in carefully arranged patterns, so as to herd one of the grumpiest and biggest-clawed crabs into a corner of the shack. While the other crabs scattered, this crab was trapped in a corner, afraid of the noisy shoes but with nowhere to hide from them.

"Good work!" Tails cried. "Keep him in the corner, Sonic, while I ready the potato."

"What is the potato for?" Amy asked.

"As we know," Tails explained as Sonic tapped his little feet this way and that to keep the crab in the corner, "these crabs love to get their claws on our toes. I specifically snitched a potato that was toe-shaped. You see how it's curved in a sort of oval way, and the little bumpy part here looks like a toenail?"

"You're right," Amy said. "The resemblance is remarkable. But what does it have to do with staples?"

"Well, the metal rods that Router gave us are very long, and need to be cut cleanly into small, staple-sized pieces. While Sonic keeps the crab in the corner, I'm going to wave the potato at him. He-or she, come to think of it, I don't know how to tell a boy crab from a girl crab-"

"It's a girl," Amy said. "Trust me."

"Well, she'll think it's a toe," Tails continued, "and snap at it with her claws. At that instant, I'll yank the potato away and put a rod in its place. If I do it carefully enough, the crab should do a perfect job of slicing it up."

"And then what?" Amy asked.

"First things first," Tails replied firmly. "O.K. Sonic, keep tapping those noisy shoes. I'm ready with the potato and rod number one."

"What can I do?" Amy asked.

"You can start studying for the comprehensive exam, of course," Tails said. "I couldn't possibly read all of Sonia's notes in just one night. While Sonic and I make the staples, you need to read Manic's and Sonia's notebooks, you teach me the stories from Mr. Bean Remora's class, memorize all of Mrs. Mina Bass' stories."

"Roger," Amy said. As you probably know, the middle Hedge was not referring to anybody named Roger. He was saying a man's name to indicate that he understood what

Tails had said and would act accordingly, and over the course of the next two hours, that's exactly what he did. While Sonic used his noisy shoes to keep the crab in the corner and Tails used the potato as a toe and the crab's claws as clean cutters, Amy used the Quagmire notebooks to study for the comprehensive exams, and everything worked the way it should. Sonic tapped his shoes so noisily that the crab remained trapped. Tails was so quick with the potato and metal rods that soon they were snipped into staple-sized pieces. And Amy- although she had to squint because Sonia was using her glasses-read Manic's measuring notes so carefully that before long she had memorized the length, width, and depth of just about everything.

"Tails, ask me the measurements of the navy blue scarf," Amy said, turning the notebook over so she couldn't peek.

Tails yanked the potato away just in time, and the crab snipped off another bit of the metal rods. "What are the measurements of the dark blue scarf?" he asked.

"Two decimeters long," Amy recited, "nine centimeters wide, and four millimeters thick.

It's boring, but it's correct. Sonic, ask me the measurements of the bar of deodorant soap."

The crab saw an opportunity to leave the corner, but Sonic was too quick for it. "Soap?" Sonic quizzed Amy as the crab retreated.

"Eight centimeters by eight centimeters by eight centimeters," Amy said promptly. "That one's easy. You're doing great, you two. I bet that crab's going to be almost as tired as we are."

"No," Tails said, "she's done. Let him go, Sonic. We have all the staple-sized pieces we need. I'm glad that part of the staple-making process is over. It's very nerve-wracking to tease a crab."

"What's next?" Amy said, as the crab scurried away from the most frightening moments of his life.

"Next you teach me Mr. Bean Remora's stories," Tails said, "while Sonic and I bend these little bits of metal into the proper shape."

"Shablo," Sonic said, which meant something like "How are we going to do that?"

"Watch," Tails said, and Sonic watched. While Amy closed Manic's dark green notebook

and began paging through Sonia's purple notebook, Tails took the glob of creamed spinach and mixed it with a few pieces of stray hay and dust until it was a sticky, gluey mess. Then he placed this mess on the spiky end of the fork, and stuck it to one of the bales of hay so the handle end of the fork hung over the side. He blew on the creamed- spinach- stray- hay- and- dust mixture until it hardened. "I always thought that Prufrock Prep's creamed spinach was awfully sticky," Tails explained, "and then I realized it could be used as glue. And now, we have a perfect method of making those tiny strips into staples. See, if I lay a strip across the handle of the fork, a tiny part of the strip hangs off each of the sides. Those are the parts that will go inside the paper when it's a staple. If I take off my noisy shoes"-and here Tails paused to take off his noisy shoes-"and use the metal ends to tap on the strips, they'll bend around the handle of the fork and turn into staples. See?"

"Gyba!" Sonic shrieked. He meant "You're a genius! But what can I do to help?"

"You can keep your noisy shoes on your feet," Tails replied, "and keep the crabs away from us. And Amy, pass me the notebook so I can start revising the stories."

"Roger," Sonic said.

"Roger," Amy said, and once again, neither of them were referring to Roger. They meant, once again, that they understood what Tails had said, and would act accordingly, and all three Hedges acted accordingly for the rest of the night. Tails tapped away at the metal strips, and Amy read out loud from Sonia's notebook, and Sonic stomped his noisy shoes. Soon, the Hedges had a pile of homemade staples on the floor, the details of Mr. Bean Remora's stories, and Mrs. Mina Bass' mesurments in their brains, and not a single crab bothering them in the shack, and even with the threat of Coach Genghis hovering over them, the evening actually began to feel rather cozy. It reminded the Hedges of evenings they had spent when their parents were alive, in one of the living rooms in the Hedge mansion. Tails would often be tinkering away at some invention, while Amy would often be reading and sharing the information she was learning, and Sonic would often be making loud noises. Of course, Tails was never tinkering frantically at an invention that would save their lives, Amy was never reading something so boring, and Sonic was never making loud noises to scare crabs, but nevertheless as the night wore on, the Hedges felt almost at home in the Orphans Shack. And when the sky began to lighten with the first rays of dawn, the Hedges began to feel a certain thrill that was quite different from the thrill of being in disguise. It was a thrill that I have never felt in my life, and it was a thrill that the Hedges did not feel very often. But as the morning sun began to shine, the Hedge orphans felt the thrill of thinking your plan might work after all, and that perhaps they would eventually be as safe and happy as the evenings they remembered.

Assumtions are a dangerous thing to make, and like all darngrous things like bombs, or strawberry shortcake – if you make even the tinest mistakes can land you in deep trouble. Making Assumptions simply means beleving things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows that you are correct. For instance if you woke up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place as it always was even though you would have little proof that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that

you'd made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.

The morning of the comprehensive exams, however, the Hedge orphans were so tired, not only from staying up all night studying and making staples but also from nine consecutive nights of running laps, that they made plenty of assumptions, and every last one of them turned out to be incorrect.

"Well, that's the last staple," Tails said, stretching his tired muscles. "I think we can safely assume that Sonic won't lose his job."

"And I seem to know every detail of Mr. Bean Remora's stories as well as you know all of Mrs. Mina Bass's measurements," Amy said, rubbing her tired eyes, "so I think we can safely assume that we won't be expelled."

"Nilikoh," Sonic said, yawning his tired mouth. He meant something like "And we haven't seen either of the Quagmire triplets, so I think we can safely assume that their part of the plan went well."

"That's true," Amy said. "I assume if they'd been caught we would have heard by now."

"I'd make the same assumption," Tails said.

 _"I'd make the same assumption,"_ came a nasty, mimicking voice, and the children were startled to see Vice Principal Router standing behind them holding a huge stack of papers. In addition to the assumptions they had made out loud, the Hedges had made the assumption that they were alone, and they were surprised to find not only Vice Principal Router but also Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass waiting in the doorway of the Orphans Shack. "I hope you've been studying all evening," Router said, "because I told your teachers to make these exams extra challenging, and the pieces of paper that the baby has to staple are very thick. Well, let's get started. Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass will take turns asking you questions until one of you gets an answer wrong, and then you flunk. Sonic will sit in the back and staple these papers into booklets of five papers each, and if your homemade staples don't work perfectly, then _you_ flunk. Well, a musical genius like myself doesn't have all day to oversee exams. I've missed too much practice time as it is. Let's begin!"

Router threw the papers into a big heap on one of the bales of hay, and the stapler right after it. Sonic ran over as quickly as he could and began inserting the staples into the stapler, and Amy stood up, still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. Tails put his noisy shoes back on his feet, and Mr. Bean Remora swallowed a bite of banana and asked his first question.

"In my story about the donkey," he said, "how many kilometers did the donkey run?"

"Six," Tails said promptly.

 _"Six,_ " Router mimicked. "That can't be correct, can it, Mr. Bean Remora?"

"Um, yes, actually," Mr. Bean Remora said, taking another bite of banana.

"How wide," Mrs. Mina Bass said to Amy, "was the book with the yellow cover?"

"Fourteen centimeters," Amy said immediately.

 _"Fourteen centimeters,"_ Router mocked. "That's wrong, isn't it, Mrs. Mina Bass?"

"No," Mrs. Mina Bass admitted. "That's the right answer."

"Well, try another question, Mr. Bean Remora," Router said.

"In my story about the mushroom," Mr. Bean Remora asked Tails, "what was the name of the chef?"

"Thomas," Tails answered. _"Thomas,_ " Router mimicked.

"Correct," Mr. Bean Remora said.

"How long was chicken breast number seven?" Mrs. Mina Bass asked.

"Sixteen centimeters and five millimeters," Amy said.

 _"Sixteen centimeters and five millimeters,"_ Router mimicked.

"That's right," Mrs. Mina Bass said. "You're actually both very good students, even if you've been sleeping through class lately."

"Stop all this chitchat and flunk them," Router said. "I've never gotten to expel any students, and I'm really looking forward to it."

"In my story about the dump truck," Mr. Bean Remora said, as Sonic began to staple the pile of thick papers into booklets, "what colour were the rocks that it carried?"

"Gray and brown."

 _"Gray and brown."_

"Correct."

"How deep was my mother's casserole dish?"

"Six centimeters."

 _"Six centimeters."_

"Correct."

"In my story about the weasel, what was its favorite color?"

"Blue and Silver"

" _Blue and Silver"_

"Correct"

"How long was the royal blue ink fountain pen number 4?"

"Fourteen centimeters and ninety nine millimeters"

" _Fourteen centimeters and ninety nine millimeters"_

"Correct"

The comprehensive exams went on and on, and if I were to repeat all of the tiresome and pointless questions that Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass asked, you might become so bored that

you might go to sleep right here, using this book as a pillow instead of as an entertaining and instructive tale to benefit young minds. Indeed, the exams were so boring that the Hedge orphans might normally have dozed through the test themselves. But they dared not doze. One wrong answer or unstapled piece of paper, and Router would expel them from Prufrock Preparatory School and send them into the waiting clutches of Coach Genghis, so the three children worked as hard as they could. Tails tried to remember each detail Amy had taught him, Amy tried to remember every measurment had taught herself, and Sonic stapled like mad, a phrase which here means "quickly and accurately." Finally, Mr. Bean Remora stopped in the middle of his eighth banana, after Amy correctly guessed the name of a policewomen and turned to Vice Principal Router.

"Router," he said, "there's no use continuing these exams. Tails is a very fine student, and has obviously studied very hard."

Mrs. Mina Bass nodded her head in agreement. "In all my years of teaching, I've never encountered a more metric-wise girl than Amy, here. And it looks like Sonic is a fine secretary as well. Look at these booklets! They're gorgeous."

"Pilso!" Sonic shrieked.

"My brother means 'Thank you very much,'" Tails said, although Sonic really meant something more like "My stapling hand is sore."

"Does this mean we get to stay at Prufrock Prep?"

"Oh, let them stay, Router," Mr. Bean Remora said. "Why don't you expel that Sally Spats?

She never studies, and she's an awful person besides."

"Oh yes," Mrs. Mina Bass said. "Let's give _her_ an extra-challenging examination."

"I can't flunk Sally Spats," Router said impatiently. "She's Coach Genghis's Special Messenger."

"Who?" Mr. Bean Remora asked.

"You know," Mrs. Mina Bass explained, "Coach Genghis, the new gym teacher."

"Oh yes," Mr. Bean Remora said. "I've heard about him, but never met him. What is he like?"

"He's the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen," Vice Principal Router said, shaking

his four pigtails in amazement. "But you don't have to take my word for it. You can see for

yourself. Here he comes now."

Router pointed one of his hairy hands out of the Orphans Shack, and the Hedge orphans saw with horror that the vice principal was speaking the truth. Whistling an irritating tune to himself, Coach Genghis was walking straight toward them, and the children could see at once how incorrect one of their assumptions had been. It was not the assumption that Sonic would not lose his job, although that assumption, too, would turn out to be incorrect. And it was not the assumption that Tails and Amy would not be expelled, although that, too, was a wrong one. It was the assumption about the Quagmire triplets and their part of the plan going well. As Coach Genghis walked closer and closer, the Hedges saw that he was holding Tails' hair ribbon in one of his scraggly hands and Tails' and Amy's glasses in the other, and with every step

of his expensive running shoes, the coach raised a small white cloud, which the children realized must be flour from the snitched sack. But more than the ribbon, or the glasses, or the small clouds of flour was the look in Genghis's eyes. As Coach Genghis reached the Orphans Shack, his eyes were shining bright with triumph, as if he had finally won a game that he had been playing for a long, long time, and the Hedge orphans realized that the assumption about the Quagmire triplets had been very, very wrong indeed.

"Where are they!?" Tails cried as Coach Genghis stepped into the shack."What have you done to them!?". Normaly, of course, one should start a conversation with "Hello, how are you?". But the eldest Hedge was far too distressed to do so.

Genghis' eyes were shining as brightly as it could be, but his voice was calm and pleasant.

"Here they are" he said holding up the ribbion and the 2 glasses. "I thaught you would be worried about them so I braught them over first thing in the morning."

"We don't mean _these_ them!" Amy said, taking the items from Genghis's scraggly hands. "We mean _them_ them!"

"I'm afraid I don't understand all those thems," Coach Genghis said, shrugging at the adults. "The orphans ran laps last night as part of my S.O.R.E. program, but they had to dash off in the morning to take their exams. In their hurry, Tails dropped his ribbon and glasses, while Amy dropped her glasses. But the baby-"

"You know very well that's not what happened," Amy interrupted. "Where are the Quagmire triplets? What have you done with our friends?"

 _"What have you done with our friends?"_ Vice Principal Router said in his mocking tone. "Stop talking nonsense, orphans."

"I'm afraid it's not nonsense," Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. "As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn't dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving."

"Excellent idea!" Router said. "What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?" "Well, at first it seemed like I'd kicked a big hole in the baby," Genghis said, his eyes

shining, "which seemed lucky, because Sonic was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put him out of his misery."

Router clapped his hands. "I know just what you mean, Genghis," he said. "He's a terrible secretary as well."

"But he's only a…," Mr. Bean Remora protested. "Shut up and let the coach finish his story," Router said.

"But when I looked down," Genghis continued, "I saw that I hadn't kicked a hole in a baby. I'd kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I'd been tricked!"

"That's terrible!" Router cried.

"So I ran after Tails and Amy," Genghis continued, "and I found that they weren't Tails and Amy after all, but those two other orphans- the twins."

"They're not twins!" Tails cried. "They're triplets!"

 _"They're triplets!"_ Router mocked. "Don't be an idiot. Triplets are when four babies are born at the same time, and there are only two Quagmires."

"And these two Quagmires were pretending to be the Hedges, in order to give the Hedges extra time to study."

"Extra time to study?" Router said, grinning in delight. "Hee hee hee! Why, that's cheating!"

"That's not cheating!" Mrs. Mina Bass protested.

"Skipping gym class to study is cheating," Router insisted.

"No, it's just good time management," Mr. Bean Remora argued. "There's nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn't get in the way of your schoolwork."

"Look, I'm the vice principal," the vice principal said. "I say the Hedges were cheating, and therefore-hooray!-I can expel them. You two are merely teachers, so if you disagree with me, I can expel you, too."

Mr. Bean Remora looked at Mrs. Mina Bass, and they both shrugged unwillingly. "You're the boss, Router" Mr. Bean Remora said finally, taking another banana out of his pocket. "If you say they're expelled, they're expelled."

"Well, I say they're expelled," Router said. "And Sonic loses his job, too."

"Rantaw!" Sonic shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "I never wanted to work as a secretary, anyway!"

"We don't care about being expelled," Tails said. "We want to know what happened to our friends."

"Well, the Quagmires had to be punished for their part in the cheating," Coach Genghis said, "so I brought them over to the cafeteria and put those two workers in charge of them. They'll be whisking eggs all day long."

"Very sensible," Router agreed.

"That's all they're doing?" Amy said suspiciously. "Whisking eggs?"

"That's what I said," Genghis said and leaned so close to the Hedges that all they could see were his shiny eyes and the crooked curve of his wicked mouth. "Those two Quagmires will whisk and whisk until they are simply whisked away."

"You're a liar," Tails said.

"Insulting your coach," Router said, shaking his pigtailed head. "Now you're doubly expelled."

"What's this?" said a voice from the doorway. "Doubly expelled?"

The voice stopped to have a long, wet cough, so the Hedges knew without looking that it was Mr. Silver Poe. He was standing at the Orphans Shack holding a large paper sack and looking busy and confused. "What are all of you doing here?" he said. "This doesn't look like a proper place to have a conversation. It's just an old shack."

"What are _you_ doing here?" Router asked. "We don't allow strangers to wander around Prufrock Preparatory School ."

"Silver Poe's the name," Mr. Silver Poe said, shaking Router's hand. "You must be Router. We've talked on the phone. I received your email about the twenty-eight bags of candy and the ten pairs of earrings with precious stones. My associates at Mulctuary Money Management thought I'd better deliver them in person, so here I am. But what's this about expelled?"

"These orphans you foisted on me," Router said, using a nasty word for "gave," "have proven to be terrible cheaters, and I'm forced to expel them."

"Cheaters?" Mr. Silver Poe said, frowning at the three siblings. "Tails, Amy and Sonic, I'm very disappointed in you. You promised me that you'd be excellent students."

"Well, actually, only Tails and Amy were students," Router said. "Sonic was an administrative assistant, but he was terrible at it as well."

Mr. Silver Poe's eyes widened in surprise as he paused to cough into his white handkerchief. "An administrative assistant?" he repeated. "Why, Sonic's only a baby. He should be in preschool, not an office environment."

"Well, it doesn't matter now," Router said. "They're all expelled. Give me that candy."

Amy looked down at her hands, which were still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. She was afraid that the notebooks might be the only sign of the Quagmires she would ever see again. "We don't have any time to argue about candy!" she cried. "Count Eggman has done something terrible to our friends!"

"Count Eggman?" Mr. Silver Poe said, handing Router the paper sack. "Don't tell me he's found you here!"

"No, of course not," Router said. "My advanced computer system has kept him away, of course. But the children have this bizarre notion that Coach Genghis is actually Eggman in disguise."

"Count Eggman," Genghis said slowly. "Yes, I've heard of him. He's supposed to be the best actor in the whole world. I'm the best gym teacher in the whole world, so we couldn't possibly be the same person."

Mr. Silver Poe looked Coach Genghis up and down, then shook his head. "Is that so? I'm not going to be fooled for the fourth time...But…Well…."

"If he removes his turban and his shoes," Tails said impatiently, "you will be able to see that he's Eggman."

"We've been through this before," Router said. "He can't take off his running shoes because he's been exercising and his feet smell."

"And I can't take off my turban for religious reasons," Genghis added.

"You're not wearing a turban for religious reasons!" Amy said in disgust, and Sonic shrieked something in agreement. "You're wearing it as a disguise! Please, Mr. Silver Poe, make him take it off!"

"I don't think I can about that. However," Mr. Silver Poe continued, after a brief coughing spell, "I would ask you to remove your running shoes, if only to set the Hedges' minds at ease. I think we can all stand a little smelliness if it's in the cause of criminal justice, and to see if you really are Count Eggman"

"Smelly feet," Mrs. Mina Bass said, wrinkling her nose. "Ew, gross."

"I'm afraid I cannot take off my running shoes," Coach Genghis said, taking a step toward the door. "I need them."

"Need them?" Router asked. "For what?"

Coach Genghis took a long, long look at the three Hedges and smiled a terrible, toothy grin. "For running, of course," he said, and ran out the door.

The orphans were startled for a moment, not only because he had started running so suddenly but also because it seemed like he had given up so easily. After his long, elaborate plan-disguising himself as a gym teacher, forcing the Hedges to run laps, getting them expelled-he was suddenly racing across the lawn without even glancing back at the children he'd been chasing for such a long time. The Hedges stepped out of the Orphans Shack, and Coach Genghis turned back to sneer at them.

"Don't think I've given up _on you,_ orphans!" he called to them. "But in the meantime, I have two little prisoners with a very nice fortune of their own!"

He began to run again, but not before pointing a bony finger across the lawn.

The Hedges gasped. At the far end of Prufrock Prep, they saw a long, black car with dark smoke billowing out of its exhaust pipes. But the children were not gasping at air pollution. The two cafeteria workers were walking toward the car, but they had taken off their metal masks at last, and the three youngsters could see that they were the two powder-faced women who were comrades of Count Eggman's. But this was not what the children were gasping at either, although it was a surprising and distressing turn of events. What they were gasping at was what each of the women was dragging toward the car. Each powder-faced woman was dragging one of the Quagmire triplets, who were struggling desperately to get away.

"Put them in the back seat!" Genghis called. "I'll drive! Hurry!"

"What's going on!?" Mr . Silver Poe said in disbelief at what is going on.

The Hedges did not even turn to Mr. Silver Poe to try and explain. After all their S.O.R.E. training sessions, Tails and Amy found that their leg muscles could respond instantly if they wanted to run, while Sonic had this skill for a long time. And the Hedge orphans had never wanted to run more than they did now.

"After them!" Tails cried, and the children went after them. Tails ran, his tails flying wildly behind him, not even thinking of using them to fly. Amy ran, not even bothering to drop the Quagmire notebooks. And Sonic ran. Mr. Silver Poe gave a startled cough and began running after them, and Router, Mr. Bean Remora, and Mrs. Mina Bass began running after Mr. Silver Poe. If you had been hiding behind the archway, spying on what was going on, you would have seen what looked like a strange race on the front lawn, with Coach Genghis running in front, the Hedge orphans right behind, and assorted adults huffing and puffing behind the children. But if you continued watching, you would have seen an exciting development in the race, a phrase which here means that the Hedges were gaining on Genghis. The coach had much longer legs than the Hedges, of course, but he had spent the last ten nights standing around blowing a whistle. The children had spent those nights running hundreds of laps around the luminous circle, and so their tiny, strong legs and were overcoming Genghis's height advantage.

I hate to pause at such a suspenseful part of the story, but I feel I must intrude and give you one last warning as we reach the end of this miserable tale. You were probably thinking, as you read that the children were catching up to their enemy, that perhaps this was the time in the lives of the Hedge orphans when this terrible villain would finally be caught, and that perhaps the children would find some kind guardians and that Tails, Amy and Sonic would spend the rest of their lives in relative happiness, possibly creating the printing business that they had discussed with the Quagmires. And you are free to believe that this is how the story turns out, if you want. The last few events in this chapter of the Hedge orphans' lives are incredibly unfortunate, and quite terrifying, and so if you would prefer to ignore them entirely you should put this book down now and think of a gentle ending to this horrible story. I have made a solemn promise to write the Hedge history exactly as it occurred, but you have made no such promise- at least as far as I know-and you do not need to endure the wretched ending of this story, and this is your very last chance to save yourself from the woeful knowledge of what happened next. As far as I know, what will happen that day will still haunt all of the orphans.

Tails was the first to reach Coach Genghis, and he stretched his arm out as far as he could, grabbing part of his turban. Turbans, you probably know, consist of just one piece of cloth, wrapped very tightly and in a complicated way around someone's head. But Genghis had cheated, not knowing the proper way to tie a turban, because he was wearing it as a disguise and not for religious reasons. He had merely wrapped it around his head the way you might wrap a towel around yourself when getting out of the shower, so when Tails grabbed the turban, it unraveled immediately. He had been hoping that grabbing his turban would stop the coach from running, but all it did was leave him with a long piece of cloth in his hands. Coach Genghis kept running, his one eyebrow glistened with sweat over his shiny eyes.

"Look!" Mr. Silver Poe said, who was far behind the Hedges but close enough to see. "Genghis has only one eyebrow, like Count Eggman! He is Count Eggman!"

Sonic was the next Hedge to reach Genghis, and because he was short, he was in a perfect position to attack his shoes. Using all four of his sharp teeth, he

bit one pair of his shoelaces, and then the other. The knots came undone immediately, leaving tiny, bitten pieces of shoelace on the brown lawn. Sonic had been hoping that untying his shoes would make the coach trip, but Genghis merely stepped out of his shoes and kept running. Like many disgusting people, Coach Genghis was not wearing socks, so with each step his eye tattoo glistening with sweat on his left ankle.

"Stop Count Eggman!" Mr. Silver Poe yelled after seeing the tattoo

"Of course he is!" Tails cried, holding up the unraveled turban.

"Merd!" Sonic shrieked, holding up a tiny piece of shoelace. He meant something like "Finally you belive us for once "

Amy, however, did not say anything. She was putting all of her energy toward running, but she was not running toward the man we can finally call by his true name, Count Eggman. Amy was running toward the car. The powder-faced women were just shoving the Quagmires into the back seat, and he knew this might be his only chance to rescue them.

"Amy! Amy!" Sonia cried as she reached the car. Amy dropped the notebooks to the ground and grabbed her friend's hand. "Help us!"

"Hang on!" Amy cried and began to drag Sonia back out of the car. Without a word, one of the powder-faced women leaned forward and bit Amy's hand, forcing her to let go of the triplet. The other powder-faced woman leaned across Sonia's lap and began pulling the car door closed.

"No!" Amy cried and grabbed the door handle. Back and forth, Amy and Eggman's associate tugged on the door, forcing it halfway open and halfway shut.

"Amy!" Manic cried, from behind Sonia. "Listen to me, Amy! If anything goes wrong-"

"Nothing will go wrong," Amy promised, pulling on the car door as hard as she could. "You'll be out of here in a second!"

"If anything goes wrong," Manic said again, "there's something you should know. When we were researching the history of Count Eggman, we found out something dreadful!"

"We can talk about this later," Amy said, struggling with the door.

"Look in the notebooks!" Sonia cried. "The-" The first powder-faced woman put her hand over Sonia's mouth so she couldn't speak. Sonia turned her head roughly and slipped from the woman's grasp. "The-" The powdery hand covered her mouth again.

"Hang on!" Amy called desperately. "Hang on!"

"Look in the notebooks! V.F.D." Manic screamed, but the other woman's powdery hand covered his mouth before he could continue.

"What?" Amy said.

Manic shook his head vigorously and freed himself from the woman's hand for just one moment. "V.F.D." he managed to scream again, and that was the last Amy heard. Count Eggman, who had been running slower without his shoes, had reached the car, and with a deafening roar, he grabbed Amy's hand and pried it loose from the car door. As the door slammed shut, Eggman kicked Amy in the stomach, sending her falling to the ground and landing with a rough _thump!_ near the Quagmire notebooks he had dropped. The villain towered over Amy and gave her a sickening smile, then leaned down, picked up the notebooks, and tucked them under his arm.

"No!" Amy screamed, but Count Eggman merely smiled, stepped into the front seat, and began driving away just as Tails and Sonic reached their sister. Clutching her stomach, Amy stood up and tried to follow her brothers, who were trying to chase the long, black car. But Eggman was driving over the speed limit and it was simply impossible, and after a few yards the Hedges had to stop. The Quagmire triplets climbed over the powder-faced women and began to pound on the rear window of the car. Tails, Amy and Sonic could not hear what the Quagmires were screaming through the glass; they only saw their desperate and terrified faces. But then the powdery hands of Eggman's assistants grabbed them and pulled them back from the window. The faces of the Quagmire triplets faded to nothing, and the Hedges saw nothing more as the car pulled away.

"We have to go after them!" Amy screamed, her face streaked with tears. She turned around to face Router and Mr. Silver Poe, who were pausing for breath on the edge of the lawn. "We have to go after them!"

"We'll call the police," Mr. Silver Poe gasped, wiping his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief. "They have an advanced computer system, too. They'll catch him. Where's the nearest phone, Router?"

"You can't use my phone, Poe!" Router said. "You brought three terrible cheaters here, and now, thanks to you, my greatest gym teacher is gone and took two students with him! The Hedges are triple-expelled!"

"Now see here, Router," Poe said. "Be reasonable."

The Hedges sunk to the brown lawn, weeping with frustration and exhaustion. They paid no attention to the argument between Vice Principal Router and Mr. Silver Poe, because they knew, from the prism of their experience, that by the time the adults had decided on a course of action, Count Eggman would be long gone. This time, Eggman had not merely escaped but escaped with friends of theirs, and the Hedges wept as they thought they might never see the triplets again. They were wrong about this, but they had no way of knowing they were wrong, and just imagining what Count Eggman might do to their dear friends made them only weep harder. Tails wept, thinking of how kind the Quagmires had been to him and his siblings upon the Hedges' arrival at this dreadful academy. Amy wept, thinking of how the Quagmires had risked their lives to help her and her brothers escape from Eggman's clutches. And Sonic wept, thinking of the research the Quagmires had done, and the information they hadn't had time to share with him and his siblings.

The Hedge orphans hung on to one another, and wept and wept while the adults argued endlessly behind them. Finally-as, I'm sorry to say, Count Eggman forced the Quagmires into puppy costumes so he could sneak them onto the airplane without anyone noticing-the Hedges cried themselves out and just sat on the lawn together in weary silence. They looked up at the smooth gray stone of the tombstone buildings and at the arch with "PRUFROCK PREPARATORY SCHOOL " in enormous black letters and the motto "Memento Mori" printed beneath. They looked out at the edge of the lawn, where Eggman had snatched the Quagmire notebooks. And they took long, long looks at one another. The Hedges remembered, as I'm sure you remembered, that in times of extreme stress one can find energy hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body, and Tails, Amy and Sonic felt that energy surge through them now.

"What did Manic shout to you?" Tails asked. "What did he shout to you from the car, about what was in the notebooks?"

"V.F.D." Amy said, "but I don't know what it means."

"Ceju," Sonic said, which meant "We have to find out."

The older Hedges looked at their brother and nodded. Sonic was right. The children had to find out the secret of V.F.D. and the dreadful thing the Quagmires had discovered. Perhaps it could help them rescue the two triplets. Perhaps it could bring Count Eggman to justice. And perhaps it could somehow make clear the mysterious and deadly way that their lives had become so unfortunate.

A morning breeze blew through the campus of Prufrock Preparatory School , rustling the brown lawn and knocking against the stone arch with the motto printed on it. "Memento Mori"-"Remember you will die." The Hedge orphans looked up at the motto and vowed that before they died, they would solve this dark and complicated mystery that cast a shadow over their lives.


	7. the ersatz elevator

THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR

For Cream -

When we met, my life began.

Soon afterwards, yours ended

One

The book you are holding in your two hands right now-assuming that you are, in fact, holding this book, and that you have only two hands-is one of two books in the world that will show you the difference between the word "nervous" and the word "anxious." The other book, of course, is the dictionary, and if I were you I would read that book instead.

Like this book, the dictionary shows you that the word "nervous" means "worried about something"-you might feel nervous, for instance, if you were served prune ice cream for dessert, because you would be worried that it would taste awful-whereas the word "anxious" means "troubled by disturbing suspense," which you might feel if you were served a live alligator for dessert, because you would be troubled by the disturbing suspense about whether you would eat your dessert or it would eat you. But unlike this book, the dictionary also discusses words that are far more pleasant to contemplate. The word "bubble" is in the dictionary, for instance, as is the word "peacock," the word "vacation," and the words "the" "author's" "execution" "has" "been" "canceled," which make up a sentence that is always pleasant to hear. So if you were to read the dictionary, rather than this book, you could skip the parts about "nervous" and "anxious" and read about things that wouldn't keep you up all night long, weeping and tearing out your hair.

But this book is not the dictionary, and if you were to skip the parts about "nervous" and "anxious" in this book, you would be skipping the most pleasant sections in the entire story. Nowhere in this book will you find the words "bubble," "peacock," "vacation," or, unfortunately for me, anything about an execution being canceled. Instead, I'm sorry to say, you will find the words "grief, "despair," and "woeful" as well as the phrases "dark passageway," "Count Eggman in disguise," and "the Hedge orphans were trapped," plus an assortment of miserable words and

phrases that I cannot bring myself to write down. In short, reading a dictionary might make you feel nervous, because you would worry about finding it very boring, but reading this book will make you feel anxious, because you will be troubled by the disturbing suspense in which the Hedge orphans find themselves, and if I were you I would drop this book right out of your two or more hands and curl up with a dictionary instead, because all the miserable words I must use to describe these unfortunate events are about to reach your eyes.

"I imagine you must be nervous," Mr. Silver Poe said. Mr. Silver Poe was a banker who had been put in charge of the Hedge orphans following the death of their parents in a horrible fire. I am sorry to say that Mr. Silver Poe had really not done a very good job so far, and that the Hedges had learned that the only thing they could rely on with Mr. Silver Poe was that he always had a cough. Sure enough, as soon as he finished his sentence, he took out his white handkerchief and coughed into it.

The flash of white cotton was practically the only thing the Hedge orphans could see. Tails, Amy and Sonic were standing with Mr. Silver Poe in front of an enormous apartment building on Dark Avenue, a street in one of the fanciest districts in the city. Although Dark Avenue was just a few blocks away from where the Hedge mansion had been, the three children had never been in this neighborhood before, and they had assumed that the "dark" in Dark Avenue was simply a name and nothing more, the way a street named George Washington Boulevard does not necessarily indicate that George Washington lives there or the way Sixth Street has not been divided into six equal parts. But this afternoon the Hedges realized that Dark Avenue was more than a name. It was an appropriate description. Rather than street-lamps, placed at regular intervals along the sidewalk were enormous trees the likes of which the children had never seen before-and which they could scarcely see now.

High above a thick and prickly trunk, the branches of the trees drooped down like laundry hung out to dry, spreading their wide, flat leaves out in every direction, like a low, leafy ceiling over the Hedges' heads. This ceiling blocked out all the light from above, so even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the street looked as dark as evening-if a bit greener. It was hardly a good way to make three orphans feel welcome

as they approached their new home.

"You have nothing to be nervous about," Mr. Silver Poe said, putting his handkerchief back in his pocket. "I realize some of your previous guardians have caused a little trouble, but I think Mr. and Mrs. Squalor will provide you with a proper home."

"We're not nervous," Tails said. "We're too anxious to be nervous." "'Anxious' and 'nervous' mean the same thing," Mr. Silver Poe said. "And what do you have to be anxious about, anyway?"

"Count Eggman, of course," Tails replied. Tails was fourteen, which made him the eldest Hedge child (even though he was adopted) and the one who was most likely to speak up to adults. He was a superb inventor, and I am certain that if he had not been so anxious, he would have tied his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes while he thought of an invention that could brighten up his surroundings.

"Count Eggman?" Mr. Silver Poe said dismissively. "Don't worry about him. He'll never find you here."

The three children looked at one another and sighed. Count Eggman had been the first guardian Mr. Silver Poe had found for the orphans, and he was a person as shady as Dark Avenue. He had one long eyebrow, a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, and two filthy hands that he hoped to use to snatch away the Hedge fortune that the orphans would inherit as soon as Tails came of age. The children had convinced Mr. Silver Poe to remove them from Eggman's care, but since then the count had pursued them with a dogged determination, a phrase which here means "everywhere they went, thinking up treacherous schemes and wearing disguises to try to fool the three children."

"It's hard not to worry about Eggman," Amy said, taking off her glasses to see if it was easier to look around the gloom without them, "because he has our compatriots in his clutches." Although Amy, the middle Hedge, was only twelve, she had read so many books that she frequently used words like "compatriots," which is a fancy word for "friends." Amy was referring to the Quagmire triplets, whom the Hedges had met while they were attending boarding school. Manic Quagmire was a reporter, and was always writing down useful information in his notebook. Sonia Quagmire was a poet, and used her notebook to write poetry. The third

triplet, Shadow, had died in a fire before the Hedge orphans had the opportunity to meet him, but the Hedges were certain that he would have been as good a friend as his siblings. Like the Hedges, the Quagmires were orphans, having lost their parents in the same fire that claimed their brother's life, and also like the Hedges, the Quagmires had been left an enormous fortune, in the form of the famous Quagmire sapphires, which were very rare and valuable jewels. But unlike the Hedges, they had not been able to escape Count Eggman's clutches. Just when the Quagmires had learned some terrible secret about Eggman, he had snatched them away, and since then the Hedges had been so worried that they had scarcely slept a wink. Whenever they closed their eyes, they saw only the long, black car that had whisked the Quagmires away, and they heard only the sound of their friends shrieking one fragment of the dreadful secret they had learned. "V.F.D.!" Manic had screamed, just before the car raced away, and the Hedges tossed and turned, and worried for their friends, and wondered what in the world V.F.D. could stand for.

"You don't have to worry about the Quagmires, either," Mr. Silver Poe said confidently. "At least, not for much longer. I don't know if you happened to read the Mulctuary Money Management newsletter, but I have some very good news about your friends."

"Gavu?" Sonic asked. Sonic was the youngest Hedge orphan, and the smallest, too. He was scarcely larger than a salami. This size was usual for his age, but he had four teeth that were larger and sharper than those of any other baby I have ever seen. Despite the maturity of his mouth, however, Sonic usually talked in a way most people found difficult to understand. Also despite his age, he was a very fast runner. By "Gavu," for instance, he meant something along the lines of "The Quagmires have been found and rescued?" and Tails was quick to translate so Mr. Silver Poe would understand. "Better

than that," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I have been promoted. I am now the bank's Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs. That means that I am in charge not only of your situation, but of the Quagmire situation as well. I promise you that I will concentrate a great deal of my energy on finding the Quagmires and returning them to safety, or my name isn't"-here Mr. Silver Poe interrupted himself to cough once more into his handkerchief, and the

Hedges waited patiently until he finished-"Silver Poe. Now, as soon as I drop you off here I am taking a three-week helicopter ride to a mountain peak where the Quagmires may have been spotted. It will be very difficult to reach me during that time, as the helicopter has no phone, but I will call you as soon as I get back with your young pals. Now, can you see the number on this building? It's hard for me to tell if we're at the right place."

"I think it says 667," Amy said, squinting in the dim green light. "Then we're here," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Mr. and Mrs. Squalor live in the penthouse apartment of 667 Dark Avenue. I think the door is here. "

"No, it's over here," said a high, scratchy voice out of the darkness. The Hedges jumped a little in surprise, and turned to see a fox wearing a hat with a wide brim and a coat that was much too big for him. The coat sleeves hung over his hands, covering them completely, and the brim of his hat covered most of his face. He was so difficult to see that it was no wonder that the children hadn't spotted him earlier. "Most of our visitors find it hard to spot the door," the man said. "That's why they hired a doorman."

"Well, I'm glad they did," Mr. Silver Poe said. "My name is Silver Poe, and I have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Squalor to drop off their new children." "Oh, yes," the doorman said. "They told me you were coming. Come on in."

The doorman opened the door of the building and showed them inside to a room that was as dark as the street. Instead of lights, there were only a few candles placed on the floor, and the children could scarcely tell whether it was a large room or a small room they were standing in.

"My, it's dark in here," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Why don't you ask your employers to bring in a good strong halogen lamp?"

"We can't," the doorman replied. "Right now, dark is in." "In what?" Tails asked.

"Just 'in'," the doorman explained. "Around here, people decide whether something is in, which means it's stylish and appealing, or out, which means it's not. And it changes all the time. Why, just a couple of weeks ago, dark was out, and light was in, and you should have seen this neighborhood. You had to wear sunglasses all the time or you'd hurt your

eyes."

"Dark is in, huh?" Mr. Silver Poe said. "Wait until I tell my wife. In the meantime, could you show us where the elevator is? Mr. and Mrs. Squalor live in the penthouse apartment, and I don't want to walk all the way to the top floor."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to," the doorman said. "There's a pair of elevator doors right over there, but they won't be of any use to you." "Is the elevator out of order?" Tails asked. "I'm very good with mechanical devices, and I'd be happy to take a look at it."

"That's a very kind and unusual offer," the doorman said. "But the elevator isn't out of order. It's just out. The neighborhood decided that elevators were out, so they had the elevator shut down. Stairs are in, though, so there's still a way to get to the penthouse. Let me show you." The doorman led the way across the lobby, and the Hedge orphans peered up at a very long, curved staircase made of wood, with a metal banister that curved alongside. Every few steps, they could see, somebody had placed more candles, so the staircase looked like nothing more than curves of flickering lights, growing dimmer as the staircase went farther and farther up, until they could see nothing at all.

"I've never seen anything like this," Amy said.

"It looks more like a cave than a staircase," Tails said.

"Pinse!" Sonic said, which meant something like "Or outer space!"

"It looks like a long walk to me," Mr. Silver Poe said, frowning. He turned to the doorman. "How many floors up does this staircase go?"

The doorman's shoulders shrugged underneath his oversized coat. "I can't remember," he said. "I think it's forty-eight, but it must be eighty-four." "I didn't know buildings could be that high," Amy said.

"Well, whether it's forty-eight or eighty-four," Mr. Silver Poe said, "I don't have time to walk you children all the way up. I'll miss my helicopter. You'll have to go up by yourselves, and tell Mr. and Mrs. Squalor that I send my regards."

"We have to walk up by ourselves?" Tails said.

"Just be glad you don't have any of your things with you," Mr. Silver Poe said. "Mrs. Squalor said there was no reason to bring any of your old clothing, and I think it's because she wanted to save you the effort of dragging

suitcases up all those stairs."

"You're not going to come with us?" Amy asked.

"I simply don't have the time to accompany you," Mr. Silver Poe said, "and that is that."

The Hedges looked at one another. The children knew, as I'm sure you know, that there is usually no reason to be afraid of the dark, but even if you are not particularly afraid of something, you might not want to get near it, and the orphans were a bit nervous about climbing all the way up to the penthouse without an adult walking beside them.

"If you're afraid of the dark," Mr. Silver Poe said, "I suppose I could delay my search for the Quagmires, and take you to your new guardians."

"No, no," Amy said quickly. "We're not afraid of the dark, and finding the Quagmires is much more important."

"Obog," Sonic said doubtfully. "Just try to run as long as you can," Tails said to his brother, "and then Amy and I will take turns carrying you. Good-bye, Mr. Silver Poe."

"Good-bye, children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "If there's any problem, remember you can always contact me or any of my associates at Mulctuary Money Management-at least, as soon as I get off the helicopter."

"There's one good thing about this staircase," the doorman joked, starting to walk Mr. Silver Poe back to the front door. "It's all uphill from here."

The Hedge orphans listened to the doorman's chuckles as he disappeared into the darkness, and they walked up the first few steps. As I'm sure you know, the expression "It's all uphill from here" has nothing to do with walking up stairs-it merely means that things will get better in the future. The children had understood the joke, but they were too anxious to laugh. They were anxious about Count Eggman, who might find them any minute. They were anxious about the Quagmire triplets, whom they might never see again. And now, as they began to walk up the candlelit stairway, they were anxious about their new guardians. They tried to imagine what sort of people would live on such a dark street, in such a dark building, and at the top of either forty eight or eighty-four flights of very dark stairs. They found it difficult to believe that things would get better in the future when they lived in such gloomy and poorly lit surroundings. Even though a long, upward climb awaited them, as the

Hedge orphans started walking into the darkness, they were too anxious to believe it was all uphill from here.

Two

In order to get a better sense of exactly how the Hedge orphans felt as they began the grueling journey up the stairs to Mr. and Mrs. Squalor's penthouse apartment, you might find it useful to close your eyes as you read this chapter, because the light was so dim from the small candles on the ground that it felt as if their eyes were closed even when they were looking as hard as they could. At each curve in the staircase, there was a door that led to the apartment on each floor, and a pair of sliding elevator doors. Tails found it unwise to fly all the way up, as he wasn't that good at it. Sonic also found it unwise to run up too as he could have an accident, and his siblings won't know until it was too late. From behind the sliding doors, the youngsters of course heard nothing, as the elevator had been shut down, but behind the doors to the apartments the children could hear the noises of people who lived in the building. When they reached the seventh floor, they heard two men laugh

as somebody told a joke. When they reached the twelfth floor, they heard the splashing of water as somebody took a bath. When they reached the nineteenth floor, they heard a woman say "Let them eat cake" in a voice with a strange accent.

"I wonder what people will hear when they walk by the penthouse apartment," Tails wondered out loud, "when we are living there."

"I hope they hear me turning pages," Amy said. "Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Squalor will have some interesting books to read."

"Or maybe people will hear me using a wrench," Tails said. "I hope the Squalors have some tools they'd let me use for my inventing."

"Crife!" Sonic said, crawling carefully past one of the candles on the ground.

Tails looked down at her and smiled. "I don't think that will be a problem, Sonic," she said. "You usually find something or other to bite. And I bet that there will be plenty of space to run. Be sure to speak up when you want us to start carrying you."

"I wish somebody could carry me, " Amy said, clutching the banister for support. "I'm getting tired."

"Me too," Tails admitted. "You would think, after Count Eggman made us run all those laps when he was disguised as a gym teacher, that these stairs wouldn't tire us out, but that's not the case. What floor are we on, anyway?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "The doors aren't numbered, and I've lost count."

"Well, we won't miss the penthouse," Tails said. "It's on the top floor, so we'll just keep walking until the stairs stop."

"I wish you could invent a device that could take us up the stairs," Amy said. "Or carry us when flying"

Tails smiled, although his siblings couldn't see it in the darkness. "That device was invented a long time ago," he said. "It's called an elevator. But elevators are out, remember? And you know I get tired after flying 2 floors, so that won't work"

Amy smiled too. "And tired feet are in," she said.

"Remember that time," Tails said, "when our parents attended the Sixteenth Annual Run-aThon, and their feet were so tired when they got home that Dad prepared dinner while sitting on the kitchen floor, instead of standing?"

"Of course I remember," Amy said. "We had only salad, because they couldn't stand up and reach the stove."

"It would have been a perfect meal for Aunt Sticks," Tails said, remembering one of the Hedges' previous guardians. "She never wanted to use the stove, because she thought it might explode." "Pomres," Sonic said sadly. He meant something along the lines of "As it turned out, the stove was the least of Aunt Sticks' problems."

"That's true," Tails said quietly, as the children heard someone sneeze from behind a door.

"I wonder what the Squalors will be like," Amy said.

"Well, they must be wealthy to live on Dark Avenue," Tailssaid. "Akrofil," Sonic said, which meant "And they're not afraid of heights, that's for sure."

Amy smiled and looked down at her brother. "You sound tired, Sonic," she said. "Tails and I can take turns carrying you. We'll switch every three floors."

Tails nodded in agreement with Amy's plan, and then said "Yes" out loud because he realized that his nod was invisible in the gloom. They continued up the staircase, and I'm sorry to say that the two older Hedges took many, many turns holding Sonic. If the Hedges had been going up a staircase of regular size, I would write the sentence "Up and up they went," but a more appropriate sentence would begin "Up and up and up and up" and would take either forty-eight or eighty-four pages to reach "they went," because the staircase was so unbelievably lengthy.

Occasionally, they would pass the shadowy figure of someone else walking down the stairs, but the children were too tired to say even "Good afternoon"-and, later, "Good evening"-to these other residents of 667 Dark Avenue. The Hedges grew hungry. They grew achy. And they grew very tired of gazing at identical candles and steps and doors.

Just when they could stand it no longer, they reached another candle and step and door, and about five flights after that the stairs finally ended and deposited the tired children in a small room with one last candle sitting in the middle of the carpet. By the light of the candle, the Hedge orphans could see the door to their new home, and across the way, two pairs of sliding elevator doors with arrowed buttons alongside.

"Just think," Tails said, panting from her long walk up the stairs, "if elevators were in, we would have arrived at the Squalor penthouse in just a few minutes."

"Well, maybe they'll be back in soon," Amy said. "I hope so. The other door must be to the Squalors' apartment. Let's knock."

They knocked on the door, and almost instantly it swung open to reveal a tall green crocodile wearing a suit with long, narrow stripes down it. Such a suit is called a pinstripe suit, and is usually worn by people who are either movie stars or gangsters.

"I thought I heard someone approaching the door," the crocodile said, giving the children a smile that was so big they could see it even in the dim room. "Please come in. My name is Jerome Vector Squalor, and I'm so happy that you've come to stay with us."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Squalor," Tails said, still panting, as she and her siblings walked into an entryway almost as dim as the staircase. "I'm Tails Hedge, and this is my sister, Amy, and my brother, Sonic."

"Goodness, you sound out of breath," Mr. Vector Squalor said. "Luckily, I can think of two things to do about that. One is that you can stop calling me Mr. Squalor and start calling me Vector. I'll call you three by your first names, too, and that way we'll all save breath. The second thing is that I'll make you a nice, cold martini. Come right this way."

"A martini?" Amy asked. "Isn't that an alcoholic beverage?"

"Usually it is," Jerome Vector agreed. "But right now, alcoholic martinis are out. Aqueous martinis are in. An aqueous martini is simply cold water served in a fancy glass with an olive in it, so it's perfectly legal for children as well as for adults."

"I've never had an aqueous martini," Tails said, "but I'll try one." "Ah!" Jerome Vector said. "You're adventurous! I like that in a person. Your mother was adventurous, too. You know, she and I were very good

friends years back. We hiked up Mount Fraught with some friends-gosh, it must have been twenty years ago. Mount Fraught was known for having dangerous animals on it, but your mother wasn't afraid. But then, swooping out of the sky-"

"Jerome Vector , who was that at the door?" called a voice from the next room,

and in walked a tall, slender, whitish hedgehog, also dressed in a pinstripe suit. She had long fingernails that were so strongly polished that they shone even in the dim light.

"The Hedge children, of course," Vector replied. "But they're not coming today!" the woman cried.

"Of course they are," Vector said. "I've been looking forward to it for days and days! You know," he said, turning from the woman to the Hedges, "I wanted to adopt you from the moment I heard about the fire. But, unfortunately, it was impossible."

"Orphans were out then," the woman explained. "Now they're in."

"My wife is always very attentive to what's in and what's out," Vector said. "I don't care about it much, but Eudora feels differently. She was the one who insisted on having the elevator removed. Eudora, I was just about to make them some aqueous martinis. Would you like one?"

"Oh, yes!" Eudora cried. "Aqueous martinis are in!" She walked quickly over to the children and looked them over. "I'm Eudora Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor," she announced grandly. "Even though I am unbelievably wealthy, you may call me Eudora. I'll learn your names later. I'm very happy you're here, because orphans are in, and when all my friends hear that I have three real live orphans, they'll be sick with jealousy, won't they, Vector ?"

"I hope not," Vector said, leading the children down a long, dim hallway to a huge, dim room that had various fancy couches, chairs, and tables. At the far end of the room was a series of windows, all with their shades drawn so that no light could get in. "I don't like to hear of anybody getting sick. Well, have a seat, children, and we'll tell you a little bit about your new home."

The Hedges sat down in three huge chairs, grateful for the opportunity to rest their feet. Jerome Vector crossed to one of the tables, where a pitcher of water sat next to a bowl of olives and some fancy glasses, and quickly prepared the aqueous martinis. "Here you go," he said, handing Eudora and the children each a fancy glass. "Let's see. In case you ever get lost, remember that your new address is 667 Dark Avenue in the penthouse apartment."

"Oh, don't tell them silly things like that," Eudora said, waving her

long-nailed hand in front of her face as if a moth were attacking it. "Children, here are some things you should know. Dark is in. Light is out. Stairs are in. Elevators are out. Pinstripe suits are in. Those horrible clothes you are wearing are out."

"What Eudora means," Jerome Vector said quickly, "is that we want you to feel as comfortable here as possible."

Tails took a sip of his aqueous martini. He was not surprised to find that it tasted like plain water, with a slight hint of olive. He didn't like it much, but it did quench his thirst from the long climb up the stairs. "That's very nice of you," he said.

"Mr. Silver Poe told me about some of your previous guardians," Vector said, shaking his head. "I feel awful that you've had such terrible experiences, and that we could have cared for you the entire time."

"It couldn't be helped," Eudora said. "When something is out, it's out, and orphans used to be out."

"I heard all about this Count Eggman person, too," Vector said. "I told the doorman not to let anyone in the building who looked even vaguely like that despicable man, so you should be safe."

"That's a relief," Amy said.

"That dreadful man is supposed to be up on some mountain, anyway," Eudora said. "Remember, Vector ? That unstylish banker said he was going away in a helicopter to go find those twins he kidnapped."

"Actually," Tails said, "they're triplets. The Quagmires are good friends of ours."

"My word!" Jerome Vector said. "You must be worried sick!"

"Well, if they find them soon," Eudora said, "maybe we'll adopt them, too. Five orphans! I'll be the innest person in town!"

"We certainly have room for them," Vector said. "This is a

seventy-one-bedroom apartment, children, so you will have your pick of rooms. Amy, Poe mentioned something about your being interested in inventing things, is that right?"

"My brother's the inventor," Amy replied. "I'm more of a researcher myself."

"Well, then," Vector said. "You can have the bedroom next to the library, and Tails can have the one that has a large wooden bench, perfect for

keeping tools. Sonic can be in the room between you two. How does that sound?" That sounded absolutely splendid, of course, but the Hedge orphans did not get an opportunity to say so, because a telephone rang just at that instant.

"I'll get it! I'll get it!" Eudora cried, and raced across the room to pick up the phone. "Squalor residence," she said, into the receiver, and then waited as the person spoke on the other end. "Yes, this is Mrs. Squalor. Yes. Yes. Yes? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She hung up the phone and turned to the children. "Guess what?" she asked. "I have some fantastic news on what we were talking about!"

"The Quagmires have been found?" Amy asked hopefully.

"Who?" Eudora asked. "Oh, them. No, they haven't been found. Don't be silly. Vector , children, listen to me-dark is out! Regular light is in!" "Well, I'm not sure I'd call that fantastic news," Vector said, "but it will be a relief to get some light around this place. Come on, Hedges, help me open the shades and you can get a look at our view. You can see quite a bit from so high up."

"I'll go turn on all the lamps in the penthouse," Eudora said breathlessly. "Quickly, before anybody sees that this apartment is still dark!"

Eudora dashed from the room, while Vector gave the three siblings a little shrug and walked across the room to the windows. The Hedges followed him, and helped him open the heavy shades that were covering the windows. Instantly, sunlight streamed into the room, making them squint as their eyes adjusted to regular light. If the Hedges had looked around the room now that it was properly illuminated, they would have seen just how fancy all the furniture was. The couches had pillows embroidered with silver. The chairs were all painted with gold paint. And the tables were made from wood chopped away from some of the most expensive trees in the world. But the Hedge orphans were not looking around the room, as luxurious as it was. They were looking out of the window onto the city below.

"Spectacular view, don't you think?" Vector asked them, and they nodded in agreement. It was as if they were looking out on a tiny, tiny city, with matchboxes instead of buildings and bookmarks instead of streets. They could see tiny colored shapes that looked like various insects but were

really all the cars and carriages in town, driving along the bookmarks until they reached the matchboxes where the tiny dots of people lived and worked. The Hedges could see the neighborhood where they had lived with their parents, and the parts of town where their friends had lived, and in a faint blue strip far, far away, the beach where they had received the terrible news that had begun all their misfortune.

"I knew you'd like it," Jerome Vector said. "It's very expensive to live in a penthouse apartment, but I think it's worth it for a view like this. Look, those tiny round boxes over there are orange juice factories. That sort of purplish building next to the park is my favorite restaurant. Oh, and look straight down-they're already cutting down those awful trees that made our street so dark."

"Of course they're cutting them down," Eudora said, hurrying back into the room and blowing out a few candles that were sitting on the mantelpiece. "Regular light is in-as in as aqueous martinis, pinstripes, and orphans." Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked straight down, and saw that Jerome Vector was right. Those strange trees that had blocked out the sunlight on Dark Avenue, looking no taller than paper clips from such a great height, were being chopped down by little gardener dots. Even though the trees had made the street seem so gloomy, it seemed a shame to tear them all down, leaving bare stumps that, from the penthouse window, looked like thumbtacks. The three siblings looked at one another, and then back down to Dark Avenue. Those trees were no longer in, so the gardeners were getting rid of them. The Hedges did not like to think of what would happen when orphans were no longer in, either.

Three

If you were to take a plastic bag and place it inside a large bowl, and then, using a wooden spoon, stir the bag around and around the bowl, you could use the expression "a mixed bag" to describe what you had in front of you, but you would not be using the expression in the same way I am about to use it now. Although "a mixed bag" sometimes refers to a plastic bag that has been stirred in a bowl, more often it is used to describe a situation that has both good parts and bad parts. An afternoon at a movie theater, for instance, would be a mixed bag if your favorite movie were showing, but if you had to eat gravel instead of popcorn. A trip to the zoo would be a very mixed bag if the weather were beautiful, but all of the man-and woman-eating lions were running around loose. And, for the Hedge orphans, their first few days with the Squalors were one of the most mixed bags they had yet encountered, because the good parts were very good, but the bad parts were simply awful.

One of the good parts was that the Hedges were living once more in the city where they were born and raised. After the Hedge parents had died, and after their disastrous stay with Count Eggman, the three children had been sent to a number of remote locations to live, and they sorely missed the familiar surroundings of their hometown. Each morning, after Eudora left for work, Vector would take the children to some of their favorite places in town. Tails was happy to see that his favorite exhibits at the Verne Invention Museum had not been changed, so he could take another look at the mechanical demonstrations that had inspired him to be an inventor when he was just two years old. Amy was delighted to

revisit the Akhmatova Bookstore, where her father used to take her as a special treat, to buy an atlas or a volume of the encyclopedia. And Sonic was interested in visiting the Pincus Hospital where she was born, although her memories of this place were a little fuzzy, along with the Cheetah Sports field, which is where he got the hobby of running.

But in the afternoons, the three children would return to 667 Dark Avenue, and it was this part of the Hedges' situation that was not nearly as pleasant. For one thing, the penthouse was simply too big. Besides the seventy-one bedrooms, there were a number of living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms, sitting rooms, standing rooms, ballrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, dark rooms and an assortment of rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all. The penthouse was so enormous that the Hedge orphans often found themselves hopelessly lost inside it. Tails would leave his bedroom to go brush his teeth and not find his way back for an hour. Amy would accidentally leave her glasses on a kitchen counter and waste the whole afternoon trying to find the right kitchen.

And Sonic would find a very comfortable spot for sitting and biting things and be unable to find it the next day. It was often difficult to spend any time with Vector , simply because it was very difficult to find him amid all the fancy rooms of their new home, and the Hedges scarcely saw Eudora at all. They knew she went off to work every day and returned in the evenings, but even at the times when she was in the apartment with them, the three children scarcely caught a glimpse of the city's sixth most important financial advisor. It was as if she had forgotten all about the new members of her family, or was simply more interested in lounging around the rooms in the apartment rather than spending time with the three siblings. But the Hedge orphans did not really mind that Eudora was absent so often. They much preferred spending time with one another, or with Vector , rather than participating

in endless conversations about what was in and what was out. Even when the Hedges stayed in their bedrooms, the three children did not have such a splendid time. As he had promised, Vector had given Tails the bedroom with the large wooden bench, which was indeed perfect for keeping tools, but Tails could find no tools in the entire penthouse. He found it odd that such an enormous apartment would have not even a socket wrench or one measly pair of pliers, but Eudora haughtily explained,

when Tails asked her one evening, that tools were out. Amy did have the Squalor library next to his bedroom, and it was a large and comfortable room with hundreds of books on its shelves. But the middle Hedge was disappointed to find that every single book was merely a description of what had been in and out during various times in history. Amy tried to interest herself in books of this type, but it was so dull to read a snooty book like Boots Were In in 1812 or Trout: In France They're Out that Amy found himself spending scarcely any time in the library at all. And poor Sonic fared no better, a phrase which here means "also became bored in his bedroom." Vector had thoughtfully placed a number of toys in his room, but they were the sort of toys designed for

softer-toothed babies- squishy stuffed animals, cushioned balls, and assorted colorful pillows, none of which were the least bit fun to bite, because hard toys were out, and so was running for leisure.

But what really mixed the Hedge bag was not the overwhelming size of the Squalor apartment, or the disappointments of a tool bench without tools, a library without interesting books, nonchewable items of amusement or no place to run. What really troubled the three children was the thought that the Quagmire triplets were undoubtedly experiencing things that were much, much worse. With every passing day, their worry for their friends felt like a heavy load on the Hedges' shoulders, and the load only seemed heavier, because the Squalors refused to be of any assistance. "I'm very, very tired of discussing your little twin friends," Eudora said one day, as the Hedges and the Squalors sipped aqueous martinis one evening in a living room the children had never seen before. "I know you're worried about them, but it's boring to keep blabbing on about it." "We didn't mean to bore you," Tails said, not adding that it is terribly rude to tell people that their troubles are boring.

"Of course you didn't," Vector said, picking the olive out of his fancy glass and popping it into his mouth before turning to his wife. "The children are concerned, Eudora, which is perfectly understandable. I know Mr. Silver Poe is doing all he can, but maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something else."

"I don't have time to put my head together," Eudora said. "The In Auction is coming up, and I have to devote all of my energy to making sure it's a success."

"The In Auction?" Amy asked.

"An auction," Vector explained, "is a sort of sale. Everyone gets together in a large room, and an auctioneer shows off a bunch of things that are available for purchase. If you see something you like, you call out how much you'd be willing to pay for it. That's called a bid. Then somebody else might call out a bid, and somebody else, and whoever calls out the highest price

wins the auction and buys the item in question. It's terribly exciting. Your mother used to love them! I remember one time-"

"You forgot the most important part," Eudora interrupted. "It's called the In Auction because we're selling only things that are in. I always organize it, and it's one of the most smashing events of the year!"

"Smashi?" Sonic asked.

"In this case," Amy explained to her younger brother, "the word 'smashing' doesn't mean that things got smashed up. It just means 'fabulous.'"

"And it is fabulous," Eudora said, finishing her aqueous martini. "We hold the auction at Veblen Hall, and we auction off only the innest things we can find, and best of all, all the money goes to a good cause."

"Which good cause?" Tails asked. Eudora clapped her long-nailed hands together with glee. "Me! Every last bit of money that people pay at the auction goes right to me! Isn't that smashing?"

"Actually, dear," Vector said, "I was thinking that this year, perhaps we should give the money to another good cause. For instance, I was just reading about this family of seven. The mother and father lost their jobs, and now they're so poor that they can't even afford to live in a one room apartment. We might send some of the auction money to people like them."

"Don't talk nonsense," Eudora said crossly. "If we give money to poor people, then they won't be poor anymore. Besides, this year we're going to make heaps of money. I had lunch with twelve millionaires this morning, and eleven of them said they were definitely going to attend the In Auction. The twelfth one has to go to a birthday party. Just think of the money I'll make, Vector ! Maybe we could move to a bigger apartment!" "But we just moved in a few mounths ago," Vector said. "I'd rather spend some money on putting the elevator back in use. It's very tiring to climb

all the way up to the penthouse."

"There you go, talking nonsense again," Eudora said. "If I'm not listening to my orphans babble about their kidnapped friends, I'm listening to you talk about out things like elevators. Well, we have no more time for chitchat in any case. Gunther is stopping by tonight, and I want you, Vector , to take the children out for dinner."

"Who is Gunther?" Vector asked.

"Gunther is the auctioneer, of course," Eudora replied. "He's supposed to be the innest auctioneer in town, and he's going to help me organize the auction. He's coming over tonight to discuss the auction catalog, and we don't want to be disturbed. That's why I want you to go out to dinner, and give us a little privacy."

"But I was going to teach the children how to play chess tonight," Vector said.

"No, no, no," Eudora said. "You're going out to dinner. It's all arranged. I made a reservation at Café Salmonella for seven o'clock. It's six o'clock now, so you should get moving. You want to

allow plenty of time to walk down all those stairs. But before you leave, children, I have a present for each of you."

At this, the Hedge children were taken aback, a phrase which here means "surprised that someone who was so selfish had purchased gifts for them," but sure enough, Eudora reached behind the dark red sofa she was sitting on, and brought out three shopping bags that had the words "In Boutique" written on them in fancy, curly script. With an elegant gesture, Eudora handed a bag to each Hedge.

"I thought if I bought you something you really wanted," she said, "you might stop all this chatter about the Quagmires."

"What Eudora means," Vector added hurriedly, "is that we want you to be happy here in our home, even when you're worried about your friends." "That's not what I mean at all," Eudora said, "but never mind. Open the bags, kids."

The Hedges opened their presents, and I'm sorry to say that the shopping bags were mixed bags as well. There are many, many things that are difficult in this life, but one thing that isn't difficult at all is figuring out whether someone is excited or not when they open a present.

If someone is excited, they will often put exclamation points at the ends of their sentences to indicate their excited tone of voice. If they say "Oh!" for instance, the exclamation point would indicate that the person is saying "Oh!" in an excited way, rather than simply saying "Oh," with a comma after it, which would indicate that the present is somewhat disappointing.

"Oh," Tails said, as he opened his present. "Oh," Amy said, as she opened hers.

"Oh," Sonic said, as he tore open his shopping bag with his teeth. "Pinstripe suits! I knew you'd be excited!" Eudora said. "You must have been mortified the last few days, walking around the city without wearing any pinstripes! Pinstripes are in, and orphans are in, so just imagine how in you'll be when you orphans are wearing pinstripes! No wonder you're so excited!"

"They didn't sound excited when they opened the presents," Jerome Vector said, "and I don't blame them. Eudora, I thought we said that we'd buy Tails a tool kit. He's very enthusiastic about inventing, and I thought we'd support that enthusiasm."

"But I'm enthusiastic about pinstripe suits, too," Tails said, knowing that you should always say that you are delighted with a present even when you don't like it at all. "Thank you very much."

"And Amy was supposed to get a good almanac," Vector continued. "I told you about her interest in the International Date Line, and an almanac is the perfect book to learn all about that."

"But I'm very interested in pinstripes," said Amy, who was as good as lie as well as his sister, when the need arose. "I really appreciate this gift."

"And Sonic," Vector said, "was going to be given a large square made of bronze. It would have been attractive, and easily bitable. Or that running mashine"

"Ayjim," Sonic said. He meant something along the lines of "I love my suit. Thank you very much," even though she didn't mean it one bit.

"I know we discussed buying those silly items," Eudora said, with a wave of her long-nailed hand, "but tools have been out for weeks, almanacs have been out for months, and I received a phone call this afternoon informing me that large bronze squares and running mashines are not expected to be in for at least another year. What's in now is pinstripes, Vector, and I don't appreciate

your trying to teach my new children that they should ignore what's in and what's out. Don't you want what's best for the orphans?"

"Of course," Vector sighed. "I hadn't thought of it that way, Eudora. Well, children, I do hope you like your gifts, even though they don't exactly match up with your interests. Why don't you go change into your new suits, and we'll wear them to dinner?"

"Oh, yes!" Eudora said. "Café Salmonella is one of the innest restaurants. In fact, I think they don't even let you eat there if you're not wearing pinstripes, so go change. But hurry up! Gunther is due to arrive any minute."

"We'll hurry," Amy promised, "and thank you again for our gifts." "You're very welcome," Vector said with a smile, and the children smiled

back at him, walked out of the living room, down a long hallway, across a kitchen, through another living room, past four bathrooms, and so on and so on and so on, eventually finding their way to their bedrooms. They stood together for a minute outside the three bedroom doors, looking sadly into their shopping bags.

"I don't know how we're going to wear these things," Tails said.

"I don't either," Amy said. "And it's all the worse knowing that we almost got presents we really want."

"Puictiw," Sonic agreed glumly.

"Listen to us," Tails said. "We sound hopelessly spoiled. We're living in an enormous apartment. We each have our own room. The doorman has promised to watch out for Count Eggman, and at least one of our new guardians is an interesting person. And yet we're standing here complaining."

"You're right," Amy said. "We should make the best of things. Getting a lousy present isn't really worth complaining over-not when our friends are in such terrible danger. We're really very lucky to be here at all." "Chittol," Sonic said, which meant something like "That's true. We should stop complaining and go change into our new outfits."

The Hedges stood together for another moment and nodded resolutely, a phrase which here means "tried to make themselves stop feeling ungrateful and put on the suits." But even though they didn't want to seem spoiled, even though they knew their situation was not a terrible

one at all, and even though they had less than an hour to change into the suits, find Jerome Vector , and walk down all those hundreds and hundreds of stairs, the three children could not seem to move. They simply stood in front of their bedroom doors and stared into their bags from the In Boutique.

"Of course," Amy said finally, "no matter how lucky we are, the fact remains that these pinstripe suits are entirely too big for us."

Amy spoke the truth. It was a truth that might help you understand why the Hedges were so disappointed with what was in their bags. It was a truth that might help you understand why the Hedges were so reluctant to go into their rooms and change into their pinstripe suits. And it was a truth that became even more obvious when the Hedges finally went into their rooms, and opened their bags and put on the gifts that Eudora had given them.

It is often difficult to tell if a piece of clothing will fit you or not until you try it on, but the Hedge children could tell the instant they first looked into the shopping bags that these clothes dwarfed them by comparison.

The expression "dwarfed by comparison" has nothing to do with dwarves, who are dull creatures in fairy tales who spend their time whistling and cleaning house. "Dwarfed by comparison" simply means that one thing seems small when compared to another thing. A mouse would be dwarfed by comparison with an ostrich, which is much bigger, and an ostrich would be dwarfed by comparison with the city of Paris. And the Hedges were dwarfed by comparison with the pinstripe suits. When Tails put the pants part of his suit on, the legs of the suit stretched much, much farther than the legs of his body, so it was as if he had two huge noodles instead of feet, and the tail hole was too small for both of his 2 tails. When Amy put the jacket part of her suit on, the sleeves fell far, far past her hands, so her arms looked as if they had shrunk up inside her body. And Sonic's suit dwarfed his so much by comparison that it was as if he had pulled the covers over his in bed instead of changing his clothes. When the Hedges stepped back out of their bedrooms and met up again in the hallway, they were so dwarfed by comparison that they scarcely recognized one another.

"You look like you're skiing," Amy said, pointing at her older brother's pant legs. "Except your skis are made of cloth instead of titanium alloy."

Four

If you are ever forced to take a chemistry class, you will probably see, at the front of the classroom, a large chart divided into squares, with different numbers and letters in each of them. This chart is called the table of the elements, and scientists like to say that it contains all the substances that make up our world. Like everyone else, scientists are wrong from time to time, and it is easy to see that they are wrong about the table of the elements. Because although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table of the

elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. The element of surprise is not a gas, like oxygen, or a solid, like aluminum. The element of surprise is an unfair advantage, and it can be found in situations in which one person has sneaked up on another. The surprised person-or, in this sad case, the surprised persons-are too stunned to defend themselves, and the sneaky person has the advantage of the element of surprise. "Hello, please," Count Eggman said in his raspy voice, and the Hedge orphans were too stunned to defend themselves. They did not scream.

They did not run away from Eggman. They did not call out for their guardians to save them. They merely stood there, in their enormous pinstripe suits, and stared at the terrible man who had somehow found them once more. As Eggman looked down at them with a nasty smile, enjoying the unfair advantage of the element of surprise, the children saw that he was in yet another of his nefarious disguises, a phrase which here means that he did not fool them one bit no matter what he was wearing. On Eggman's feet were a pair of shiny black boots with high tops that almost reached his

knees-the sort of boots that someone might wear to ride a horse. Over one of Eggman's eyes was a monocle, which is an eyeglass for one eye, instead of two-the sort of eyewear that requires you to furrow your brow in order to keep it in place. And the rest of his body was covered in a pinstripe suit-the sort of suit that someone might wear in order to be in at the time when this story takes place. But the Hedges knew that Eggman didn't care about being in, any more than he had imperfect vision in one eye or was about to go horseback riding. The three children knew that Eggman was wearing boots to cover up the tattoo of an eye that he had on his left ankle. They knew he was wearing the monocle so that he could furrow his brow and make it difficult to see that he had only one long eyebrow over his shiny, shiny eyes. And they knew that he was wearing a pinstripe suit so that people would think he was a rich, in person who belonged on Dark Avenue, instead of a greedy, treacherous villain who belonged in a heavily guarded prison.

"You must be children, please," he continued, using the word "please" incorrectly for the second time. "The name of mine is Gunther. Please excuse the talking of me. Please, I am not fluent in the English language,

please."

"How ..." Tails said, and then stopped. He was still stunned, and it was difficult to finish the sentence "How did you find us so quickly, and how did you get past the doorman, who promised to keep you away from us?" while under the element of surprise.

"Where ..." Amy said, and then stopped. She was as stunned as her brother, and she found it impossible to finish the sentence "Where have you put the Quagmire triplets?" while under the element of surprise.

"Bik ..." Sonic said, and stopped. The element of surprise weighed down on the youngest Hedge as heavily as it did on Tails and Amy, and Sonic could not find the words to finish the sentence "Bikayado?" which meant something like "What new evil plan have you cooked up to steal our fortune?"

"I see you are not fluent in the English language either, please," Count Eggman said, continuing to fake a different way of talking. "Where is the mother and father?"

"We're not the mother and father," Eudora said, and the Hedges felt another element of surprise as the Squalors walked into the hallway from another door. "We're the legal guardians. These children are orphans, Gunther."

"Ah!" From behind his monocle, Count Eggman's eyes grew even shinier, as they often did when he was looking down on the helpless Hedges. The children felt as if his eyes were a pair of lit matches, about to burn them to a crisp. "Orphans in!" he said.

"I know orphans are in," Eudora said, ignoring Eggman's improper grammar. "In fact, they're so in they ought to be auctioned off next week at the big event!"

"Eudora!" Vector said. "I'm shocked! We're not going to auction off these children."

"Of course we're not," Eudora said. "It's against the law to auction off children. Oh, well. Come along, Gunther. I'll give you a full tour of our apartment. Vector , take the children to Café Salmonella."

"But we haven't even introduced them," Jerome Vector said. "Tails, Amy, Sonic-meet Gunther, the auctioneer we were talking about earlier. Gunther, meet the newest members of our family."

"I am happy to meet you, please," Eggman said, reaching out one of his scraggly hands.

"We've met before," Tails said, happy to see that the element of surprise was fading away and that she was finding the courage to speak up. "Many times before. Jerome Vector and Eudora, this man is an impostor. He's not Gunther and he's not an auctioneer. This is Count Eggman."

"I am not understanding, please, what the orphan is saying," Eggman said. "Please, I am not fluent in the English language, please."

"Yes you are," said Amy, who also found himself feeling more courageous than surprised. "You speak English perfectly."

"Why, Amy, I'm surprised at you!" Vector said. "A well-read person such as yourself should know he made a few grammatical errors."

"Waran!" Sonic shrieked.

"My sister is right," Tails said. "His improper English is just part of his disguise. If you make him take off his boots, you'll see his tattoo, and if you make him take off his monocle, his brow will unfurrow, and-" "Gunther is one of the innest auctioneers in the world," Eudora said impatiently. "He told me so himself. I'm not going to make him get undressed just to make you feel better. Now shake Gunther's hand, and go off to dinner and we'll say no more about it."

"He's not Gunther, I tell you!" Amy cried. "He's Count Eggman."

"I am not knowing what you are saying, please," Count Eggman said, shrugging his scrawny shoulders.

"Eudora," Vector said hesitantly. "How can we be sure this man is really who he says he is? ' The children do seem quite alarmed, they have been right for five times. Perhaps we should-"

"Perhaps we should listen to me," Eudora said, pointing one long-nailed finger at herself. "I am Eudora Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor. I live on Dark Avenue, and I am unbelievably wealthy." "I know that, dear," Vector said. "I live with you."

"Well, if you want to continue to live with me, you will call this man by his proper name, and this goes for you three children as well. I go to the trouble of buying you some smashing pinstripe suits, and you start accusing people of being in disguise!"

"It is O.K., please," Count Eggman said. "The children are confused."

"We're not confused, Eggman," Tails said.

Eudora turned to Tails and gave him an angry glare. "You and your siblings will call this man Gunther," she ordered, "or you will make me very, very sorry I took you into my glamorous home. The same will apply for every person who will support you"

Tails looked at Amy, and then at Sonic, and quickly made a decision. Arguing with somebody is never pleasant, but sometimes it is useful and necessary to do so. Just the other day, for example, it was useful and necessary for me to have an unpleasant argument with a medical student, because if he hadn't let me borrow his speedboat I would now be chained inside a very small, waterproof room, instead of sitting in a typewriter factory typing out this woeful tale. But Tails realized that it was neither useful nor necessary to argue with Eudora, because her guardian had clearly made up her mind about Gunther. It would be more useful and necessary to leave the penthouse and try to figure out what to do about the reappearance of this dreadful villain, instead of standing there and bickering over what name to call him, so Tails took a deep breath and smiled up at the man who had brought so much trouble into the Hedge lives.

"I'm sorry, Gunther," he said, almost choking on his false apology. "But-" Amy started to argue, but Tails gave her a look that meant the

Hedges would discuss the matter later, when there weren't any adults around. "That's right," she said quickly, understanding her brother's glance at once. "We thought you were someone else, sir."

Gunther reached up to his face and adjusted his monocle. "O.K., please," he said.

"It's so much nicer when no one is arguing," Vector said. "Come on, children, let's go to dinner. Gunther and Eudora have to plan the auction, and they need the apartment to themselves."

"Let me just take a minute to roll up my sleeves," Amy replied. "Our suits are a little big."

"First you complain that Gunther is an impostor, then you complain about your suits," Eudora said, rolling her eyes. "I guess it goes to show you that orphans can be in and rude at the same time. Come on, Gunther, let me show you the rest of my glorious apartment."

"See you later, please," Gunther said to the children, his eyes shining

brightly, and gave them a little wave as he followed Eudora down the hallway. Vector waved back, but as soon as Gunther was around the corner, he leaned in close to the children.

"That was very nice of you to stop arguing with Eudora," he said. "I could tell that you weren't completely convinced you had made a mistake about Gunther. But don't worry. There is something we can do to set your minds at ease."

The Hedges looked at one another and smiled in relief. "Oh, thank you, Vector ," Tails said. "What did you have in mind?"

Vector smiled, and knelt down to help Tails roll up the legs of his suit, and make the tail hole a bit bigger. "I wonder if you can guess," he said.

"We could make Gunther take off his boots," she said, "and we could see if he had Eggman's tattoo."

"Or we could make him remove his monocle and unfurrow his brow," Amy said, as he rolled up his sleeves, "and we could get a better look at his eyebrow situation."

"Resyca!" Sonic said, which meant something like "Or you could simply ask him to leave the penthouse, and never return!"

"Well, I don't know what 'Resyca!' means," Vector said, "but we're not going to do those other things. Gunther is a guest, and we don't want to be rude to him. Also Eudora can be unpleseant whenever someone disagrees with her. I remember that she managed to get the 10th richest person in town homeless because he liked pens that weren't blue or black, which Eudora found to be out"

The Hedges actually did want to be rude to him, but they knew it was rude to say so. "Then what will set our minds at ease?" Tails asked. "Instead of climbing down all those stairs," Vector said, "we can slide down the banister! It's great fun, and whenever I do it, it takes my mind off my troubles, no matter what they are. Follow me!"

Sliding down a banister, of course, was not going to make the Hedges feel any better about an evil person lurking around their home, but before any of them could say so, Vector was already leading the way out of the penthouse. "Come on, Hedges!" he called, and the children followed him as he walked quickly down the hallway, through four sitting rooms, across a kitchen, past nine bedrooms, and finally out of the apartment. He led the youngsters past the two pairs of elevator doors to the top of the staircase, and sat on the banister with a wide grin.

"I'll go first," he said, "so you'll see how it's done. Be careful on the curvy

parts, and if you're going too fast you can slow yourself down by scraping your shoes along the wall. Don't be scared!"

Vector gave himself a push, and in a second he had slid out of view, his laughter echoing off the stairwell as he raced down toward the lobby. The children looked down the stairway and felt

their hearts sink with fear. It was not the fear of sliding down the banister. The Hedges had slid down plenty of banisters, and although they had never slid down one that was either fortyeight or eighty-four stories high, they were not scared to try, particularly now that regular light was in so they could see where they were going. But they were afraid nonetheless. They were afraid that Gunther had a clever and nasty scheme to get his hands on the Hedge fortune, and that they didn't have the faintest idea of what it was. They were afraid that something dreadful had happened to the Quagmire triplets, because Gunther seemed to have time to find the Hedges here in their new home. And they were afraid that the Squalors would not be of any assistance in keeping the three children safe from Gunther's crooked clutches. Vector 's laughter grew fainter and fainter as he slid farther and farther away, and as they stood together without a word and looked down the stairway, which curved and curved and curved as far as their eyes could see, the Hedge orphans were afraid that it was all downhill from here.

Five

Café Salmonella was located in the Fish District, which was a part of the city that looked, sounded, smelled, and-if you were to kneel down and lick its streets-probably tasted like fish. The Fish District smelled like fish because it was located near the docks of the city, where fishermen sold the fish they had caught each morning. It sounded like fish because the pavement was always wet from the sea breeze, and the feet of passersby made bubbly, splashy sounds that resembled the noises made by sea creatures. And it looked like fish because all of the buildings in the Fish District were made of shiny, silvery scales, instead of bricks or wooden planks. When the Hedge orphans arrived at the Fish District and followed Jerome Vector to Café Salmonella, they had to look up at the evening sky to remind themselves that they were not underwater.

Café Salmonella was not just a restaurant, but a theme restaurant, which simply means a restaurant with food and decorations that follow a certain idea. The theme for Café Salmonella-and you can probably guess this from its name- was salmon. There were pictures of salmon on the walls, and drawings of salmon on the menu, and the waiters and waitresses were dressed up in salmon costumes, which made it difficult for them to carry plates and trays. The tables were decorated with vases full of salmon, instead of flowers, and of course all of the food that Café Salmonella served had something to do with salmon. There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, and liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal. And so it was that evening with the

Hedge orphans. Their costumed waiter first brought bowls of creamy salmon soup to the table, and then some chilled salmon salad and then some broiled salmon served with salmon ravioli in a salmon butter sauce for a main course, and by the time the waiter brought over salmon pie with a scoop of salmon ice cream on top the children never wanted to have another bite of salmon again. But even if the meal had featured a variety of foods, all cooked deliciously and brought by a waiter dressed in a simple, comfortable outfit, the Hedges would not have enjoyed their dinner, because the thought of Gunther spending the evening alone with their guardian made them lose their appetite far more than too much pink, flavorful fish, and Vector was simply not willing to discuss the matter any further.

"I am simply not willing to discuss the matter any further," Vector said, taking a sip from his water glass, which had chunks of frozen salmon floating in it instead of ice cubes. "And frankly, Hedges, I think you should be a little ashamed of your suspicions. Do you know what the word 'xenophobe' means?"

Tails and Sonic shook their heads, and looked over at their sister, who was trying to remember if she had come across the word in one of her books. "When a word ends in '-phobe,'" Amy said, wiping her mouth with a salmon-shaped napkin, "it usually means somebody who is afraid of something. Does 'xeno' mean 'Eggman'?"

"No," Vector said. "It means 'stranger,' or 'foreigner.' A xenophobe is somebody who is afraid of people just because they come from a different country, which is a silly reason for fear. I would have thought that you three would be far too sensible to be xenophobes. After all, Tails,

Nikola Tesla came from modern day Croatia?"

"No," Tails said. "I'd be honored to meet him. But-"

"And Amy," Vector continued, "surely you've heard of the writer Junichiro Tanizaki, who came from a country in Asia. Would you be afraid of him?"

"Of course not," Amy said. "But-"

"And Sonic," Jerome Vector continued. "The sharp-toothed mountain lion can be found in a number of countries in North America, and Jessie Owens is African American. Would you be afraid if

you met a mountain lion? Or Jessie Owens?"

"Netesh," Sonic said, which meant something like "Of course for I would! Mountain lions are wild animals, But meeting Jessie Owens, would be an honor" but Vector continued talking as if he hadn't heard a word she said.

"I don't mean to scold you," he said. "I know you've had a very difficult time since your parents' death, and Eudora and I want to do all we can to provide a good, safe home for you. I don't think Count Eggman would dare come to our fancy neighborhood, but in case he does, the doorman will spot him and alert the authorities immediately."

"But the doorman didn't spot him," Tails insisted. "He was in disguise." "And Eggman would dare to go anywhere to find us," Amy added. "It doesn't matter how fancy the neighborhood is."

Vector looked uncomfortably at the children. "Please don't argue with me," he said. "I can't stand arguing."

"But sometimes it's useful and necessary to argue," Tails said.

"I can't think of a single argument that would be useful or necessary," Vector said. "For instance, Eudora made reservations for us here at Café Salmonella, and I can't stand the taste of salmon. I could have argued with her about that, of course, but why would it be useful?"

"Well, you could have had a dinner that you enjoyed," Amy said.

Vector shook his head. "Someday, when you're older, you'll understand," he said. "In the meantime, do you remember which salmon is our waiter? It's close to your bedtime, and I'd like to pay the bill and take you home." The Hedge orphans looked at one another in frustration and sadness. They were frustrated from trying to convince Vector of Gunther's true identity, and they were sad because they knew it was no use to keep on trying. They scarcely said another word as Vector ushered them out of Café Salmonella and into a taxicab that drove them out of the Fish District to 667 Dark Avenue. On the way, the taxicab passed the beach where the Hedges had first heard the terrible news about the fire, a time that seemed in the very, very distant past, even though it had not been all that long ago, and as the children stared out the window at the ocean waves rippling along the dark, dark beach, they missed their parents more than ever. If the Hedge parents had been alive, they would have listened to their children. They would have believed them when they

told them who Gunther really was. But what made the Hedges saddest of all was the fact that if the Hedge parents had been alive, the three siblings would not even know who Count Eggman

was, let alone be the objects of his treacherous and greedy plans. Tails, Amy, and Sonic sat in the taxi and stared mournfully out the window, and they wished with all their might that they could return to the time when their lives were happy and carefree.

"You're back already?" the doorman asked, as he opened the door of the taxi with a hand still hidden in the sleeve of his coat. "Mrs. Squalor said that you were not supposed to return until your guest left the penthouse, and he hasn't come down yet."

Jerome Vector looked at his watch and frowned. "It's quite late," he said. "The children should be in bed soon. I'm sure if we're very quiet, we won't disturb them."

"I had very strict instructions," the doorman said. "Nobody is supposed to enter the penthouse apartment until the guest leaves the building, which he definitely has not done."

"I don't want to argue with you," Vector said. "But perhaps he's on his way down now. It takes a long time to get down all those stairs, unless you're sliding down the banister. So it might be O.K. for us to go up." "I never thought of that," the doorman said, scratching his chin with his

sleeve. "All right, I guess you can go up. Maybe you'll run into him on the stairs."

The Hedge children looked at one another. They weren't sure which made them more nervous-the idea that Gunther had spent so much time in the Squalor penthouse, or the idea that they might meet him as he came down the stairs. "Maybe we should wait for Gunther to leave," Tails said. "We don't want the doorman to get in trouble."

"No, no," Vector decided. "We'd best start the climb or we'll be too tired to reach the top. Sonic, be sure to let me know when you want me to carry you."

They walked into the lobby of the building and were surprised to see that it had been completely redecorated while they were at dinner. All the walls were painted blue, and the floor was covered in sand, with a few seashells scattered in the corners.

"Ocean decorating is in," the doorman explained. "I just got the phone call today. By tomorrow, the lobby will be filled with underwater scenery."

"I wish we'd known about this earlier," Vector said. "We would have brought something back from the Fish District."

"Oh, I wish you had," the doorman said. "Everybody wants ocean decorations now, and they're getting hard to find."

"There are sure to be some ocean decorations for sale at the In Auction," Vector said, as he and the Hedges reached the beginning of the stairway. "Maybe you should stop by and purchase something for the lobby."

"Maybe I will," the doorman said, smiling oddly at the children. "Maybe I will. Have a good evening, folks."

The Hedges said good night to the doorman, and began the long climb up the stairs. Up and up and up they climbed, and they passed a number of people who were on their way down, but although all of them were in pinstripe suits, none of them were Gunther. As the children climbed

higher and higher, the people going down the stairs looked more and more tired, and each time the Hedges passed an apartment door, they heard the sounds of people getting ready for bed. On the seventeenth floor, they heard somebody ask their mother where the bubble bath was. On the thirty-eighth floor, they heard the sounds of somebody brushing their teeth. And on a floor very high up-the children had lost count again, but it must have been quite high, because Vector was carrying Sonic-they heard someone with a deep, deep voice, reading a children's story out loud. All these sounds made them sleepier and sleepier, and by the time they reached the top floor the Hedge orphans were so tired it felt as if they were sleepwalking, or, in Sonic's case, being sleep-carried. They were so tired that they almost dozed off, leaning against the two sets of sliding elevator doors, as Vector unlocked the front door. And they were so tired that it seemed as if Gunther's appearance had been a dream, because when they asked about him, Eudora replied that he had left a long time ago.

"Gunther left?" Tails asked. "But the doorman said that he was still here." "Oh, no," Eudora said. "He dropped off a catalog of all the items for the In

Auction. It's in the library if you want to look at it. We went over some auctioneering details, and then he went home."

"But that can't be," Jerome Vector said.

"Of course it can be," Eudora replied. "He walked right out the front door." The Hedges looked at one another in confusion and suspicion. How had Gunther managed to leave the penthouse without being spotted? "Did he take an elevator when he left?" Amy said.

Eudora's eyes widened, and she opened and shut her mouth several times without saying anything, as if she were experiencing the element of surprise. "No," she said finally. "The elevator's been shut down. You know that."

"But the doorman said he was still here," Tails said again. "And we didn't see him when we walked up the stairs."

"Well, then the doorman was wrong," Eudora said. "But let's not have any more of this somniferous conversation. Vector , put them right to bed." The Hedges looked at one another. They didn't think the conversation was at all somniferous, a fancy word for something that is so boring it puts you to sleep. Despite their exhausting climb, the children did not feel the least bit tired when they were talking about Gunther's whereabouts.

The idea that he had managed to disappear as mysteriously as he had appeared made them too anxious to be sleepy. But the three siblings knew that they would not be able to convince the Squalors to discuss it any further, any more than they had been able to convince them that Gunther was Count Eggman instead of an in auctioneer, so they said good night to Eudora and followed Vector across three ballrooms, past a breakfast room, through two sitting rooms, and eventually to their own bedrooms.

"Good night, children," Jerome Vector said, and smiled. "The three of you will probably sleep like logs, after all that climbing. I don't mean that you resemble parts of trees, of course. I just mean that once you get into bed, I bet you'll fall right asleep and won't move any more than a log does." "We know what you meant, Vector ," Amy replied, "and I hope you're right. Good night."

Vector smiled at the children, and the children smiled back, and then looked at each other once more before walking into their bedrooms and

shutting the doors behind them. The children knew that they would not sleep like logs, unless there were certain logs that tossed and turned all night wondering things. The siblings wondered where Gunther was hiding, and how he had managed to find them, and what terrible treachery he was dreaming up. They wondered where the Quagmire triplets were, since Gunther had time to prey on the Hedges. And they wondered what

V.F.D. could mean, and if it would help them with Gunther if they knew. The Hedges tossed and turned, and wondered about all these things, and as it grew later and later they felt less and less like logs and more and more like children in a sinister and mysterious plot, spending one of the least somniferous nights of their young lives.

Six

Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn't yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one's life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the doublelocked window, but in the case of the Hedge

orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them.

Tails watched the first few rays of sunlight brighten his sturdy, tool-free workbench, and tried to imagine what sort of evil plan Gunther had cooked up. Amy watched the dawn's rays make shifting shapes on the wall that separated her room from the Squalor library, and racked her brain for a way Gunther could have vanished into thin air. And Sonic watched the emerging sun illuminate all of the unbiteable baby toys, and tried to figure out if they had time to discuss the matter together before the Squalors came to wake them up.

This last thing was fairly easy to figure out. The littlest Hedge crawled out his bedroom door, fetched his sister, and opened Tails' door to find him out of bed and sitting at her wooden workbench with his bangs tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. "Tageb," Sonic said.

"Good morning," Tails replied. "I thought it might help me think if I tied my bangs up, and sat at my workbench, as if I were inventing something. But I haven't figured out a thing."

"It's terrible enough that Eggman has shown up again," Amy said, "and that we have to call him Gunther. But we don't have the faintest clue what he's planning."

"Well, he wants to get his hands on our fortune, that's for sure," Tails said.

"Klofy," Sonic said, which meant "Of course. But how?"

"Maybe it has something to do with the In Auction," Amy guessed. "Why would he disguise himself as an auctioneer if it weren't part of his plan?" Sonic yawned, and Tails reached down and lifted up his brother so he could sit on his lap. "Do you think he's going to try to auction us off?" Tails asked, as Sonic leaned forward to nibble on the workbench in thought. "He could get one of those terrible assistants of his to bid higher and higher for us until he won, and then we'd be in his clutches, just like the poor Quagmires."

"But Eudora said it's against the law to auction off children," Amy pointed out.

Sonic stopped chewing on the workbench and looked at her siblings. "Nolano?" she asked, which meant something like "Do you think the Squalors are working together with Gunther?"

"I don't think so," Tails said. "They've been very kind to us-well, Vector has, at least-and anyway, they don't need the Hedge fortune. They have so much money already."

"But not much common sense," Amy said unhappily. "Gunther fooled them completely, and all it took were some black boots, a pinstripe suit, and a monocle."

"Plus, he fooled them into thinking that he had left," Tails said, "but the doorman was certain that he hadn't."

"Gunther's got me fooled, too," Amy said. "How could he have left without the doorman noticing?"

"I don't know," Tails said miserably. "The whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle, but there are too many missing pieces to solve it."

"Did I hear someone say 'jigsaw puzzles'?" Vector asked. "If you're looking for some jigsaw puzzles, I think there are a few in the cabinet in one of the sitting rooms, or maybe in one of the living rooms, I can't remember which."

The Hedges looked up and saw their guardian standing in the doorway of Tails's bedroom with a smile on his face and a silver tray in his hands.

"Good morning, Vector ," Amy said. "And thank you, but we're not looking for a jigsaw puzzle. Tails was just using an expression. We're trying to figure something out."

"Well, you'll never figure anything out on an empty stomach," Vector replied. "I have some breakfast here for you: three poached eggs and some nice whole wheat toast."

"Thank you," Tails said. "It's very nice of you to fix us breakfast." "You're very welcome," Vector replied. "Eudora has an important meeting with the Mayor of Arizona today, so we have the whole day to ourselves. I thought we could walk across town to the Clothing District, and take your pinstripe suits to a good tailor. There's no use having those suits if they don't fit you properly."

"Knilliu!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "That's very considerate of you."

"I don't know what 'Knilliu!' means," Eudora said, walking into the bedroom, "and I don't care, but neither will you when you hear the fantastic news I just received on the phone! Aqueous martinis are out, and parsley soda is in!"

"Parsley soda?" Vector said, frowning. "That sounds terrible. I think I'll stick to aqueous martinis."

"You're not listening," Eudora said. "Parsley soda is in now. You'll have to go out right now and buy a few crates of it."

"But I was going to take the children's suits to the tailor today," Vector said.

"Then you'll have to change your plans," Eudora said impatiently. "The children already have clothing, but we don't have any parsley soda." "Well, I don't want to argue," Vector said.

"Then don't argue," Eudora replied. "And don't take the children with you, either. The Beverage District is no place for young people. Well, we'd better go, Jerome Vector . I don't want to be late for His Arizona Highness." "But don't you want to spend some time with the Hedges before the work day begins?" Vector asked.

"Not particularly," Eudora said, and looked briefly at her watch. "I'll just say good morning to them. Good morning. Well, let's go, Vector ."

Vector opened his mouth as if he had something else to say, but Eudora was already marching out of the bedroom, so he just shrugged. "Have a good day," he said to the children. "There's food in all of our kitchens, so you can make yourselves lunch. I'm sorry that our plans didn't work out after all."

"Hurry up!" Eudora called, from down the hallway, and Jerome Vector ran out of the room. The children heard their guardians' footsteps grow fainter and fainter as they made their way to the front door.

"Well," Amy said, when they couldn't hear them anymore, "what shall we do today?"

"Vinfrey," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "We'd better spend the day figuring out what Gunther's up to."

"How can we know what he's up to," Amy said, "when we don't even know where he is?"

"Well, we'd better find out," Tails said. "He already had the unfair advantage of the element of surprise, and we don't want him to have the unfair advantage of a good hiding place."

"This penthouse has lots of good hiding places," Amy said. "There are so many rooms."

"Koundix," Sonic said, which meant something like "But he can't be in the penthouse. Eudora saw him leave."

"Well, maybe he sneaked back in," Tailssaid, "and is lurking around right now."

The Hedges looked at one another, and then at Tails' doorway, half expecting to see Gunther standing there looking at them with his shiny, shiny eyes.

"If he was lurking around here," Amy said, "wouldn't he have grabbed us the instant the Squalors went out?"

"Maybe," Tails said. "If that was his plan."

The Hedges looked at the empty doorway again. "I'm scared," Amy said.

"Ecrif!" Sonic agreed.

"I'm scared, too," Tails admitted, "but if he's here in the penthouse, we'd better find out. We'll have to search the entire place and see if we find him."

"I don't want to find him," Amy said. "Let's run downstairs and call Mr. Silver Poe instead."

"Mr. Silver Poe is in a helicopter, looking for the Quagmire triplets," Tails said. "By the time he returns it may be too late, even if he does, Eudora would have threatened him. We have to figure out what Gunther is up to-not only for our sake, but for the sake of Sonia and Manic."

At the mention of the Quagmire triplets, all three Hedges felt a stiffening of their resolve, a phrase which here means "realized that they had to search the penthouse for Gunther, even though it was a scary thing to do." The children remembered how hard Manic and Sonia had worked to save them from Eggman's clutches back at Prufrock Preparatory School, doing absolutely everything they could to help the Hedges escape Eggman's evil plan. The Quagmires had sneaked out in the middle of the night and put themselves in grave danger. The Quagmires had put on

disguises, risking their lives in order to try to fool Eggman. And the Quagmires had done a lot of researching, finding out the secret of V.F.D.-although they had been snatched away before they could reveal

the secret to the Hedges. Tails, Amy, and Sonic thought about the two brave and loyal triplets, and knew they had to be just as brave and loyal, now that they had an opportunity to save their friends.

"You're right," Amy said to Tails, and Sonic nodded in agreement. "We have to search the penthouse. But it's such a complicated place. I get lost just trying to find the bathroom at night. How can we search without getting lost?"

"Hansel!" Sonic said.

The two older Hedges looked at one another. It was rare that Sonic said something that his siblings couldn't understand, but this seemed to be one of those times.

"Do you mean we should draw a map?" Tails asked. Sonic shook her head. "Gretel!" she said.

"That's two times we don't understand you," Amy said. "Hansel and Gretel? What does that mean?"

"Oh!" Tails cried suddenly. "Hansel and Gretel means Hansel and Gretel-you know, those two dim-witted children in that fairy tale."

"Of course," Amy said. "That brother and sister who insist on wandering around the woods by themselves."

"Leaving a trail of bread crumbs," Tails said, picking up a piece of toast from the breakfast tray Jerome Vector had brought them, "so they don't get lost. We'll crumble up this toast and leave a few crumbs in every room so we know we've already searched it. Good thinking, Sonic."

"Blized," Sonic said modestly, which meant something like "It's nothing," and I'm sorry to say he turned out to be right. For as the children wandered from bedroom to living room to dining room to breakfast room to snack room to sitting room to standing room to ballroom to bathroom to kitchen to drawing room to gallery to reading room to dark room to those rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all, and back again, leaving trails of toast crumbs wherever they went, Gunther was nowhere to be found. They looked in the closets of each bedroom, and the cabinets in each kitchen, and even pulled back the shower curtains in each bathroom to see if Gunther was hiding behind them. They saw racks of

clothes in the closets, cans of food in the cabinets, and bottles of cream rinse in the shower, but the children

had to admit, as the morning ended and the Hedges' own trail of crumbs led them back to Tails' room, that they had found nothing. "Where in the world can Gunther be hiding?" Amy asked. "We've looked everywhere."

"Maybe he was moving around," Tails said. "He could have been in a room behind us all the time, jumping into the hiding places we already checked."

"I don't think so," Amy said. "We surely would have heard him if he was clomping around in those silly boots. I don't think he's been in this penthouse since last night. Eudora insists that he left the apartment, but the doorman insists that he didn't. It doesn't add up."

"I've been thinking that over," Tails said. "I think it might add up. Eudora insists that he left the penthouse. The doorman insists that he didn't leave the building. That means he could be in any of the other apartments at 667 Dark Avenue."

"You're right," Amy said. "Maybe he rented one of the apartments on another floor, as a headquarters for his latest scheme."

"Or maybe one of the apartments belongs to someone in his theater troupe," Tails said, and counted those terrible people on her fingers "There's the hook-handed fox, or the bald mongoose with the long nose, or that one who looks like neither a man nor a woman."

"Or maybe those two dreadful powder-faced women-the ones who helped kidnap the Quagmires-are roommates," Amy said.

"Co," Sonic said, which meant something like "Or maybe Gunther managed to trick one of the other residents of 667 Dark Avenue into letting him into their apartment, and then he tied them up and is sitting there hiding in the kitchen."

"If we find Gunther in the building," Tails said, "then at least the Squalors will know that he is a liar. Even if they don't believe he's really Count Eggman, they'll be very suspicious if he's caught hiding in another apartment." "But how are we going to find out?" Amy asked. "We can't simply knock on doors and ask to see each apartment."

"We don't have to see each apartment," Tails said. "We can listen to

them."

Amy and Sonic looked at their sister in confusion for a moment, and then began to grin. "You're right!" Amy said. "If we walk down the stairs, listening at every door, we may be able to tell if Gunther is inside." "Lorigo!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"Not so fast," Amy said. "It's a long trip down all those stairs, and we've already done a lot of walking. We'd better change into our sturdiest shoes, and bring along some extra pairs of socks.

That way we can avoid blisters."

"And we should bring some water," Tails said, "so we won't get thirsty." "Snack!" Sonic shrieked, and the Hedge orphans went to work, changing out of their pajamas and into appropriate stair-climbing outfits, putting on their sturdiest shoes, and tucking pairs of extra socks into their pockets. After Tails and Amy made sure that Sonic had tied his shoes correctly, the children left their bedrooms and followed their crumbs down the hallway, through a living room, past two bedrooms, down another hallway, and into the nearest kitchen, sticking together the whole time so they wouldn't lose one another in the enormous penthouse. In the kitchen they found some grapes, a box of crackers, and a jar of apple butter, as well as a bottle of water that the Squalors used for making aqueous martinis but that the Hedges would use to quench their thirst during their long climb. Finally, they left the penthouse apartment, walked past the sliding elevator doors, and stood at the top of the curving stairway, feeling more like they were about to go mountain climbing than downstairs.

"We'll have to tiptoe," Tails said, "so that we can hear Gunther, but he can't hear us."

"And we should probably whisper," Amy whispered, "so that we can eavesdrop, without people eavesdropping on us."

"Philavem," Sonic said, which meant "Let's get started," and the Hedges got started, tiptoeing down the first curve of the stairway and listening at the door of the apartment directly below the penthouse. For a few seconds, they heard nothing, but then, very clearly, they heard a

woman talking on the phone.

"Well, that's not Gunther," Tails whispered. "He's not a woman."

Amy and Sonic nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve to the floor below. As soon as they reached the next door, it flung open to reveal a very short man in a pinstripe suit. "See you later, Avery!" he called, and, with a nod to the children, shut the door and began walking down the stairs.

"That's not Gunther either," Amy whispered. "He's not that short, and he's not calling himself Avery."

Tails and Sonic nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve to the floor below the floor below. They stopped and listened at this door, and heard a man's voice call out, "I'm going to take a shower, Mother," and Sonic shook his head.

"Mineak," she whispered, which meant "Gunther would never take a shower. He's filthy."

Tails and Amy nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve, and then the next, and the next and plenty more after that, listening at each door, whispering briefly to one another, and moving on. As they walked farther and farther down the stairway, they began to grow tired, as they always did when making their way to or from the Squalors' apartment, but this time they had additional hardships as well. The tips of their toes grew tired from all that tiptoeing. Their throats grew hoarse from all that whispering. Their ears were aching from listening at all those doors, and their chins drooped from nodding in agreement that nothing they heard sounded like Gunther. The morning wore on, and the Hedges tiptoed and listened, whispered and nodded, and by the time they reached the lobby of the building, it seemed that every physical feature of the Hedge orphans was suffering in some way from the long climb.

"That was exhausting," Tails said, sitting down on the bottom step and passing around the bottle of water. "Exhausting and fruitless."

"Grape!" Sonic said.

"No, no, Sonic," Tails said. "I didn't mean we didn't have any fruit. I just meant we didn't learn anything. Do you think we missed a door?"

"No," Amy said, shaking his head and passing around the crackers. "I

made sure. I even counted the number of floors this time, so we could double-check them on the way up. It's not forty-eight, or eighty-four. It's sixty-six, which happens to be the average of those two numbers.

Sixty-six floors and sixty-six doors and not a peep from Gunther behind any of them."

"I don't understand it," Tails said miserably. "If he's not in the penthouse, and he's not in any of the other apartments, and he hasn't left the building, where could he be?"

"Maybe he is in the penthouse," Amy said, "and we just didn't spot him." "Bishuy," Sonic said, which meant "Or maybe he is in one of the other apartments, and we just didn't hear him."

"Or maybe he has left the building," Tails said, spreading apple butter on a cracker and giving it to Sonic. "We can ask the doorman. There he is." Sure enough, the doorman was at his usual post by the door, and was just noticing the three exhausted children sitting on the bottom step.

"Hello there," he said, walking up to them and smiling from beneath the wide brim of his hat. Sticking out of his long sleeves were a small starfish carved out of wood, and a bottle of glue. "I was just going to put up this ocean decoration when I thought I heard someone walking down the stairs."

"We just thought we'd have lunch here in the lobby," Tails said, not wanting to admit that he and his siblings had been listening at doors, "and then hike back up."

"I'm sorry, but that means that you're not allowed back up to the penthouse," the doorman said, and shrugged his shoulders inside his oversized coat. "You'll have to stay here in the lobby. After all, my instructions were very clear: You were not supposed to return to the Squalor penthouse until the guest left. I let you go up last night because Mr. Squalor said that your guest was probably on his way down, but he was wrong, because Gunther never showed up in the lobby."

"You mean Gunther still hasn't left the building?" Tails asked.

"Of course not," the doorman said. "I'm here all day and all night, and I haven't seen him leave. I promise you that Gunther never walked out of this door."

"When do you sleep?" Amy asked.

"I drink a lot of coffee," the doorman answered. "It just doesn't make any sense," Tails said.

"Sure it does," the doorman said. "Coffee contains caffeine, which is a chemical stimulant. Stimulants keep people awake."

"I didn't mean the part about the coffee," Tails said. "I meant the part about Gunther. Eudora-that's Mrs. Squalor-is positive that he left the penthouse last night, while we were at the restaurant. But you are equally positive that he didn't leave the building. It's a problem that doesn't seem to have a solution."

"Every problem has a solution," the doorman said. "At least, that's what a close associate of mine says. Sometimes it just takes a long time to find the solution-even if it's right in front of your nose."

The doorman smiled at the Hedges, who watched him walk over to the sliding elevator doors. He opened the bottle of glue and made a small globby patch on one of the doors, and then held the wooden starfish against the glue in order to attach it. Gluing things to a door is never a very exciting thing to watch, and after a moment, Tails and Sonic turned their attention back to their lunch and the problem of Gunther's disappearance. Only Amy kept looking in the direction of the doorman as he continued to decorate the lobby. The middle Hedge looked and looked and looked, and kept on looking even when the glue dried and the doorman went back to his post at the door. Amy kept facing the ocean decoration that was now firmly attached to one of the elevator doors, because he realized now, after a tiring morning of searching the penthouse and an exhausting afternoon of eavesdropping on the stairs, that the doorman had been right. Amy didn't move her face one bit, because he realized that the solution was, indeed, right in front of her nose.

Seven

When you know someone a long time, you become accustomed to their idiosyncrasies, which is a fancy word for their unique habits. For instance, Sonic Hedge had known his brother, Tails, for quite some time, and was accustomed to Tails' idiosyncrasy of tying his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes whenever he was inventing something. Tails had known Sonic for exactly the same length of time, and was accustomed to Sonic's idiosyncrasy of saying "Freijip?" when he wanted to ask the question "How can you think of elevators at a time like this?" And both the young Hedge men were very well acquainted with their sister, Amy, and were accustomed to her idiosyncrasy of not paying a bit of attention to her surroundings when he was thinking very hard about something, as she was clearly doing as the afternoon wore on. The doorman continued to insist that the Hedge orphans could not return to the penthouse, so the three children sat on the bottom step of 667 Dark Avenue's lengthy stairwell, ate food they had brought down with them, and rested their weary legs, which had not felt this sore since Eggman, in a previous disguise, had forced them to run hundreds and hundreds of laps as part of his scheme to steal their fortune. A good thing to do when one is sitting, eating, and resting is to have a conversation, and Tails and Sonic were both eager to converse about Gunther's mysterious appearance and disappearance, and what they might be able to do about it, but Amy scarcely participated in the discussion. Only when her brothers asked her a direct question, such as "But where in the world could Gunther be?" or "What do you think Gunther is planning?" or "Topoing?"

did Amy mumble a response, and Tails and Sonic soon figured out that Amy must be thinking very hard about something, so they left her to her idiosyncrasy and talked quietly to each other until the doorman ushered Jerome Vector and Eudora into the lobby.

"Hello, Jerome Vector ," Tails said. "Hello, Eudora."

"Tretchev!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Welcome home!" Amy mumbled something.

"What a pleasant surprise to see you all the way down here!" Vector said. "It'll be easier to climb all those stairs if we have you three charming people for company."

"And you can carry the crates of parsley soda that are stacked outside," Eudora said. "Then I don't have to worry about breaking one of my fingernails."

"We'd be happy to carry big crates up all those stairs," Tails lied, "but the doorman says we're not allowed back in the penthouse."

"Not allowed?" Vector frowned. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You gave me specific instructions not to let the children back in, Mrs. Squalor," the doorman said. "At least, until Gunther left the building. And he still hasn't left."

"Don't be absurd," Eudora said. "He left the penthouse last night. What kind of doorman are you?"

"Actually, I'm an actor," the doorman said, "but I was still able to follow your instructions."

Eudora gave the doorman a stern look she probably used when giving people financial advice. "Your instructions have changed," she said. "Your new instructions are to let me and my orphans go directly to my

seventy-one-bedroom apartment. Got it, buster?" "Got it," the doorman replied meekly.

"Good," Eudora said, and then turned to the children. "Hurry up, kids," she said. "Tails and what's-her-name can each take a crate of soda, and Vector will take the rest. I guess the baby won't be very helpful, but that's to be expected. Let's get a move on."

The Hedges got a move on, and in a few moments the three children and the two adults were trekking up the sixty-six-floor-long staircase. The youngsters were hoping that Eudora might help carry the heavy crates of

soda, but the city's sixth most important financial advisor was much more interested in telling them all about her meeting with the Mayor of Arizona than in buttering up any orphans. "He told me a long list of new things that are in," Eudora squealed. "For one thing, grapefruits. Also royal blue cereal bowls, billboards with photographs of stoats on them, hang gliding, and plenty of other things that I will list for you right now." All the way up to the penthouse, Eudora listed the new in items she had learned about from His Arizona Higness, and the two Hedge brothers listened carefully the whole time. They did not listen very carefully to Eudora's very dull speech, of course, but they listened closely at each curve of the staircase,

double-checking their eavesdropping to hear if Gunther was indeed behind one of the apartment doors. Neither Tails nor Sonic heard anything suspicious, and they would have asked Amy, in a low whisper so the Squalors couldn't hear them, if he had heard any sort of Gunther noise, but they could tell from his idiosyncrasy that he was still thinking very hard about something and wasn't listening to the noises in the other apartments any more than he was listening to automobile tires,

cross-country skiing, movies with waterfalls in them, and the rest of the in things Eudora was rattling off.

"Oh, and cyan wallpaper!" Eudora said, as the Hedges and the Squalors finished a dinner of in foods washed down with parsley soda, which tasted even nastier than it sounds. "And triangular and pentagonal picture frames, and very fancy doilies, and garbage cans with letters of the alphabet stenciled all over them, and silver inked pens and-"

"Excuse me," Amy said, and his sisters jumped a little bit in surprise. It was the first time Amy had spoken in anything but a mumble since they had been down in the lobby. "I don't mean to interrupt, but my brothers and I are very tired. May we be excused to go to bed?"

"Of course," Vector said. "You should get plenty of rest for the auction tomorrow. I'll take you to the Veblen Hall at ten-thirty sharp, so-"

"No you won't," Eudora said. "Yellow paper clips are in, so are 27 different colored pens, Vector , so as soon as the sun rises, you'll have to go right to the Stationery District and get some. I'll bring the children. I'll make a list of all the 27 pen colours you should get"

"Well, I don't want to argue," Jerome Vector said, shrugging and giving the children a small smile. "Eudora, don't you want to tuck the children in?"

"Nope," Eudora answered, frowning as she sipped her parsley soda. "Folding blankets over three wriggling children sounds like a lot more trouble than it's worth. See you tomorrow, kids."

"I hope so," Tails said, and yawned. He knew that Amy was asking to be excused so she could tell him and Sonic what she had been thinking about, but after lying awake the previous night, searching the entire penthouse, and tiptoeing down all those stairs, the eldest Hedge was actually quite tired. "Good night, Eudora. Good night, Vector ."

"Good night, children," Vector said. "And please, if you get up in the middle of the night and have a snack, try not to spill your food. There seem to be a lot of crumbs around the penthouse lately."

The Hedge orphans looked at one another and smiled at their shared secret. "Sorry about that," Tails said. "Tomorrow we'll do the vacuuming if you want."

"Vacuum cleaners!" Eudora said. "I knew there was something else he told me was in. Oh, and cotton balls, and anything with chocolate sprinkles on it, and purple laptops and ..."

The Hedges did not want to stick around for any more of Eudora's in list, so they brought their plates into the nearest kitchen, and walked down a hallway decorated with the antlers of various animals, through a sitting room, past five bathrooms, took a left at another kitchen, and eventually made their way to Tails' bedroom.

"O.K., Amy," Tails said to his sister, when the three children had found a comfortable corner for their discussion. "I know you've been thinking very hard about something, because you've been doing that unique habit of yours where you don't pay a bit of attention to your surroundings."

"Unique habits like that are called idiosyncrasies," Amy said. "Stiblo!" Sonic cried, which meant "We can improve our vocabulary later-tell us what's on your mind!"

"Sorry, Sonic," Amy said. "It's just that I think I've figured out where Gunther might be hiding, but I'm not positive. First, Tails, I need to ask you something. What do you know about elevators?"

"Elevators?" Tails said. "Quite a bit, actually. My friend Ben once gave me some elevator blueprints for my birthday, and I studied them very

closely. They were destroyed in the fire, of course, but I remember that an elevator is essentially a platform, surrounded by an enclosure, that moves along the vertical axis via an endlessly looped belt and a series of ropes. It's controlled by a push-button console that regulates an electromagnetic braking system so the transport sequence can be halted at any access point the passenger desires. In other words, it's a box that moves up or down, depending on where you want to go. But so what?" "Freijip?" Sonic asked, which, as you know, was her idiosyncratic way of saying "How can you think of elevators at a time like this?"

"Well, it was the doorman who got me thinking about elevators," Amy said. "Remember when he said that sometimes the solution is right under your nose? Well, he was gluing that wooden starfish to the elevator doors right when he said that."

"I noticed that, too," Tails said. "It looked a little ugly."

"It did look ugly," Amy agreed. "But that's not what I mean. I got to thinking about the elevator doors. Outside the door to this penthouse, there are two pairs of elevator doors. But on every other floor, there's only one pair."

"That's true," Tails said, "and that's odd, too, now that I think of it. That means one elevator can stop only on the top floor."

"Yelliverc!" Sonic said, which meant "That second elevator is almost completely useless!"

"I don't think it's useless," Amy said, "because I don't think the elevator is really there."

"Not really there?" Tails asked. "But that would just leave an empty elevator shaft!"

"Middiow?" Sonic asked.

"An elevator shaft is the path an elevator uses to move up and down," Tails explained to his brother. "It's sort of like a hallway, except it goes up and down, instead of side to side."

"And a hallway," Amy said, "could lead to a hiding place." "Aha!" Sonic cried.

"Aha is right," Amy agreed. "Just think, if he used an empty elevator shaft instead of the stairs, nobody would ever know where he was. I don't think the elevator has been shut down because it's out. I think it's where

Gunther is hiding."

"But why is he hiding? What is he up to?" Tails asked.

"That's the part we still don't know," Amy admitted, "but I bet you the answers can be found behind those sliding doors. Let's take a look at what's behind the second pair of elevator doors. If we see the ropes and things you were describing, then we know it's a real elevator. But if we don't-"

"Then we know we're on the right track,"

Tails finished for her. "Let's go right this minute."

"If we go right this minute," Amy said, "we'll have do it very quietly. The Squalors are not going to let three children poke around an elevator shaft."

"It's worth the risk, if it helps us figure out Gunther's plan," Tails said. I'm sorry to say that it turned out not to be worth the risk at all, but of course the Hedges had no way of knowing that, so they merely nodded in agreement and tiptoed toward the penthouse's exit, peeking into each room before they went through to see if the Squalors were anywhere to be found. But Vector and Eudora were apparently spending the evening in some room in another part of the apartment, because the Hedges didn't see hide or hair of them-the expression "hide or hair of them" here means "even a glimpse of the city's sixth most important financial advisor, or her husband"-on their way to the front door. They hoped the door would not squeak as they pushed it open, but apparently silent hinges were in, because the Hedges made no noise at all as they left the apartment and tiptoed over to the two pairs of sliding elevator doors.

"How do we know which elevator is which?" Tails whispered. "The pairs of doors look exactly alike."

"I hadn't thought of that," Amy replied. "If one of them is really a secret passageway, there must be some way to tell."

Sonic tugged on the legs of his siblings' pants, which was a good way to get their attention without making any noise, and when Tails and Amy looked down to see what their brother wanted, he answered them just as silently. Without speaking, he reached out one of his tiny fingers and pointed to the buttons that were next to each set of sliding doors. Next to

one pair of doors, there was a single button, with an arrow printed on it pointing down. But next to the second pair of doors, there were two buttons: one with a Down arrow, and one with an Up arrow. The three children looked at the buttons and considered.

"Why would you need an Up button," Tails whispered, "if you were already on the top floor?" and without waiting for an answer to her question, he reached out and pressed it. With a quiet, slithery sound, the sliding doors opened, and the children leaned carefully into the doorway, and gasped at what they saw.

"Lakry," Sonic said, which meant something like "There are no ropes." "Not only are there no ropes," Tails said. "There's no endlessly looped belt, push-button console, or electromagnetic braking system. I don't even see an enclosed platform."

"I knew it," Amy said, in hushed excitement. "I knew the elevator was ersatz!"

"Ersatz" is a word which here means describes a situation in which one thing is pretending to be another, the way the secret passageway the Hedges were looking at had been pretending to be an elevator, but the word might as well have meant "the most terrifying place the Hedges had ever seen." As the children stood in the doorway and peered into the elevator shaft, it was as if they were standing on the edge of an enormous cliff, looking down at the dizzying depths below them. But what made these depths terrifying, as well as dizzying, was that they were so very dark. The shaft was more like a pit than a passageway, leading straight down into a blackness the likes of which the youngsters had never seen. It was darker than any night had ever been, even on nights when there was no moon. It was darker than Dark Avenue had been on the day of their arrival. It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea. The Hedge orphans had never dreamed that anything could be this dark, even in their scariest nightmares, and as they stood at the edge of this pit of unimaginable blackness, they felt as if the elevator shaft would simply swallow them up and they would never see a speck of light again.

"We have to go down there," Tails said, scarcely believing the words she was saying.

"I'm not sure I have the courage to go down there," Amy said. "Look how dark it is. It's terrifying."

"Prollit," Sonic said, which meant "But not as terrifying as what Gunther will do to us, if we don't find out his plan."

"Why don't we just go tell the Squalors about this?" Amy asked. "Then they can go down the secret passageway."

"We don't have time to argue with the Squalors," Tails said. "Every minute we waste is a minute the Quagmires are spending in Gunther's clutches."

"But how are we going to go down?" Amy asked. "I don't see a ladder, or a staircase. I don't see anything at all."

"We're going to have to climb down," Tails said, "on a rope. But where can we find rope at this time of night? Most hardware stores close at six, and I don't think that I can fly down there" "The Squalors must have some rope somewhere in their penthouse," Amy said. "Let's split up and find some. We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes."

Tails and Sonic agreed, and the Hedges stepped carefully away from the elevator shaft and tiptoed back into the Squalor penthouse. They felt like burglars as they split up and began searching the apartment, although there have been only five burglars in the history of robbery who have specialized in rope. All five of these burglars were caught and sent to prison, which is why scarcely any people lock up their rope for safekeeping, but to their frustration, the Hedges learned that their guardians didn't lock up their ropes at all, for the simple reason that they didn't have any.

"I couldn't find any ropes at all," Tails admitted, as he rejoined her siblings. "But I did find these extension cords, which might work."

"I took these curtain pulls down from some of the windows," Amy said. "They're a little bit like ropes, so I thought they might be useful." "Armani," Sonic offered, holding up an armful of Vector 's neckties. "Well, we have some ersatz ropes," Tails said, "for our climb down the ersatz elevator. Let's tie them all together with the Devil's Tongue." "The Devil's Tongue?" Amy asked.

"It's a knot," Tails explained. "It was invented by female Finnish pirates in the fifteenth century. I used it to make my grappling hook, when Eggman

had Sonic trapped in that cage, dangling from his tower room, and it'll work here as well. We need to make as long a rope as possible-for all we know, the passageway goes all the way to the bottom floor of the building."

"It looks like it goes all the way to the center of the earth," Amy said. "We've spent so much of our time trying to escape from Count Eggman. I can't believe that now we're trying to find him."

"Me neither," Tails agreed. "If it weren't for the Quagmires, I wouldn't go down there at all."

"Bangemp," Sonic reminded her siblings. He meant something along the lines of "If it weren't for the Quagmires, we would have been in his clutches a long time ago," and the two older Hedges nodded in agreement. Tails showed his siblings how to make the Devil's Tongue, and the three children hurriedly tied the extension cords to the curtain pulls, and the curtain pulls to the neckties, and the last necktie to the sturdiest thing they could find, which was the doorknob of the Squalor penthouse. Tails checked his siblings' handiwork and finally gave the whole rope a satisfied tug.

"I think this should hold us," he said. "I only hope it's long enough." "Why don't we drop the rope down the shaft," Amy said, "and listen to see if it hits the bottom? Then we'll know for sure."

"Good idea," Tails replied, and walked to the edge of the passageway. He threw down the edge of the furthermost extension cord, and the children watched as it disappeared into the blackness, dragging the rest of the Hedges' line with it. The coils of cord and pull and necktie unwound quickly, like a long snake waking up and slithering down into the shaft. It slithered and slithered and slithered, and the children leaned forward as far as they dared and listened as hard as they could. Finally, they heard a faint, faint clink!, as if the extension cord had hit a piece of metal, and the three orphans looked at one another. The thought of climbing down all that distance in the dark, on an ersatz rope they had fashioned themselves, made them want to turn around and run all the way back to their beds and pull the blankets over their heads. The siblings stood together at the edge of this dark and terrible place and wondered if they really dared to begin the climb.

The Hedge rope had made it to the bottom. But would the Hedge children?

"Are you ready?" Amy asked finally. "No," Sonic answered.

"Me neither," Tails said, "but if we wait until we're ready we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives. Let's go."

Tails tugged one last time on the rope, and carefully, carefully lowered himself down the passageway, while using his tails. Amy and Sonic watched him disappear into the darkness as if some huge, hungry creature had eaten her up. "Come on," they heard him whisper, from the blackness. "It's O.K." Amy blew on her hands, and Sonic blew on his, and the two younger Hedges followed their sister into the utter darkness of the elevator

shaft, only to discover that Tails had not told the truth. It was not O.K. It was not half O.K. It was not even one twenty-seventh O.K. The climb down the shadowy passageway felt like falling into a deep hole at the bottom of a deep pit on the bottom floor of a dungeon that was deep underground, and it was the least O.K. situation the Hedges had ever encountered. Their hands gripping the line was the only thing they saw, because even as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they were afraid to look anywhere else, particularly down. The distant clink! at the bottom of the line was the only sound they heard, because the Hedges were too scared to speak. And the only thing they felt was sheer terror, as deep and as dark as the passageway itself, a terror so profound that I have slept with four night-lights ever since I visited 667 Dark Avenue and saw this deep pit that the Hedges climbed down. But I also saw, during my visit, what the Hedge orphans saw when they reached the bottom after climbing for more than three terrifying hours. By then, their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and they could see what the bottom of their line was hitting, when it was making that faint clinking sound. The edge of the farthest extension cord was bumping up against a piece of metal, all right-a metal lock. The lock was secured around a metal door, and the metal door was attached to a series of metal bars that made up a rusty metal cage. By the time my research led me to this passageway, the cage was empty, and had been empty for a very long time. But it was not empty when the Hedges reached it. As they arrived at the bottom

of this deep and terrifying place, the Hedge orphans looked into the cage and saw the huddled and trembling figures of Manic and Sonia Quagmire.

Eight

I'm dreaming," Manic Quagmire said. His voice was a hoarse whisper of utter shock. "I must be dreaming."

"But how can you be dreaming," Sonia asked him, "if I'm having the same dream?"

"I once read about a journalist," Manic whispered, "who was reporting on a war and was imprisoned by the enemy for three years. Each morning,

she looked out her cell window and thought she saw her grandparents coming to rescue her. But they weren't really there. It was a hallucination."

"I remember reading about a poet," Sonia said, "who would see six lovely maidens in his kitchen on Tuesday nights, but his kitchen was really empty. It was a phantasm."

"No," Tails said, and reached his hand between the bars of the cage. The Quagmire triplets shrank back into the cage's far corner, as if Tails were a poisonous spider instead of a long-lost friend. "It's not a hallucination.

It's me, Tails Hedge."

"And it's really Amy," Amy said. "I'm not a phantasm." "Sonic!" Sonic said.

The Hedge orphans blinked in the darkness, straining their eyes to see as much as possible. Now that they were no longer dangling from the end of a rope, they were able to get a good look at their gloomy surroundings. Their long climb ended in a tiny, filthy room with nothing in it but the rusty cage that the extension cord had clinked against, but the Hedges saw that the passageway continued with a long hallway, just as shadowy as the elevator shaft, that twisted and turned away into the dark. The children also got a good look at the Quagmires, and that view was no less gloomy. They were dressed in tattered rags, and their faces were so smeared with dirt that the Hedges might not have recognized them, if the two triplets had not been holding the notebooks they took with them wherever they went. But it was not just the dirt on their faces, or the clothes on their bodies, that made the Quagmires look so different. It was the look in their eyes. The Quagmire triplets looked exhausted, and they looked hungry, and they looked very, very frightened. But most of all, Sonia and Manic looked haunted. The word "haunted," I'm sure you know, usually applies to a house, graveyard, or supermarket that has ghosts living in it, but the word can also be used to describe people who have seen and heard such horrible things that they feel as if ghosts are living inside them, haunting their brains and hearts with misery and despair. The Quagmires looked this way, and it broke the Hedge hearts to see their friends look so desperately sad.

"Is it really you?" Manic said, squinting at the Hedges from the far

end of the cage. "Can it really, really be you?"

"Oh, yes," Tails said, and found that her eyes were filling with tears. "It's really the Hedges," Sonia said, stretching her hand out to meet Tails'. "We're not dreaming, Manic. They're really here."

Amy and Sonic reached into the cage as well, and Manic left his corner to reach the Hedges as best he could from behind bars. The five children embraced as much as they could, half laughing and half crying because they were all together once more.

"How in the world did you know where we are?" Sonia said. "We don't even know where we are."

"You're in a secret passageway inside 667 Dark Avenue," Amy said, "but we didn't know you'd be here. We were just trying to find out what Gunther-that's what Eggman is calling himself now-was up to, and our search led us all the way down here."

"I know what he's calling himself," Manic said, "and I know what he's up to." He shuddered, and opened his notebook, which the Hedges remembered was dark green but looked black in the gloom. "Every second we spend with him, all he does is brag about his horrible plans, and when he's not looking, I write down everything he tells us so I don't forget it. Even though I'm a kidnap victim, I'm still a journalist."

"And I'm still a poet," Sonia said, and opened her notebook, which the Hedges remembered was darker purple, but now looked even darker. "Listen to this:

"On Auction Day, when the sun goes down, Gunther will sneak us out of town. "

"How will he do that?" Tails asked. "The police have been informed of your kidnapping, and are on the lookout."

"I know," Manic said. "Gunther wants to smuggle us out of the city, and hide us away on some island where the police won't find us. He'll keep us on the island until we come of age and he can steal the Quagmire sapphires. Once he has our fortune, he says, he'll take us and-"

"Don't say it," Sonia cried, covering her ears. "He's told us so many horrible things. I can't stand to hear them again."

"Don't worry, Sonia," Amy said. "We'll alert the authorities, and they'll arrest him before he can do anything."

"But it's almost too late," Manic said. "The In Auction is tomorrow morning. He's going to hide us inside one of the items and have one of his associates place the highest bid."

"Which item?" Tails asked.

Manic flipped the pages of his notebook, and his eyes widened as he reread some of the wretched things Gunther had said. "I don't know," he said. "He's told us so many haunting secrets, Tails. So many awful schemes-all the treachery he has done in the past, and all he's planning to do in the future. It's all here in this notebook-from V.F.D. all the way to this terrible auction plan."

"We'll have plenty of time to discuss everything," Amy said, "but in the meantime, let's get you out of this cage before Gunther comes back.

Tails, do you think you can pick this lock?"

Tails took the lock in his hands and squinted at it in the gloom. "It's pretty complicated," he said. "He must have bought himself some extra-difficult locks, after I broke into that suitcase of

his when we were living with Uncle Knuckles. If I had some tools, maybe I could invent something, but there's absolutely nothing down here." "Aguen?" Sonic asked, which meant something like "Could you saw through the bars of the cage?"

"Not saw," Tails said, so quietly that it was as if she was talking to herself. "I don't have the time to manufacture a saw. But maybe ..." His voice trailed off, but the other children could see, in the gloom, that she was tying his bangs up in a ribbon, to keep it out of her eyes.

"Look, Manic," Sonia said, "he's thinking up an invention! We'll be out of here in no time!"

"Every night since we've been kidnapped," Manic said, "we've been dreaming of the day when we would see Tails Hedge inventing something that could rescue us."

"If we're going to rescue you in time," Tails said, thinking furiously, "then my siblings and I have to climb back up to the penthouse right away." Sonia looked nervously around the tiny, dark room. "You're going to leave us alone?" she asked.

"If I'm going to invent something to get you out of that cage," Tails replied, "I need all the help I can get, so Amy and Sonic have to come

with me. Sonic, start climbing. Amy and I will be right behind you." "Onosew," Sonic said, which meant "Yes sir" and Amy lifted him up to the end of the rope so she could begin the long, dark climb back up to the Squalors' apartment. Amy began climbing right behind him, and Tails clasped hands with her friends.

"We'll be back as soon as we can," she promised. "Don't worry, Quagmires. You'll be out of danger before you know it."

"In case anything goes wrong," Manic said, flipping to a page in his notebook, "like it did the last time, let me tell you-"

Tails placed his finger on Manic's mouth. "Shush," he said. "Nothing will go wrong this time. I swear it."

"But if it does," Manic said, "you should know about V.F.D. before the auction begins."

"Don't tell me about it now," Tails said. "We don't have time. You can tell us when we're all safe and sound." The eldest Hedge grabbed the end of the extension cord and started to follow her siblings. "I'll see you soon," she called down to the Quagmires, who were already fading into the darkness as she began her climb. "I'll see you soon," she said again, just as she lost all sight of them.

The climb back up the secret passageway was much more tiring but a lot less terrifying, simply because they knew what they would find at the other end of their ersatz rope. On the way down the elevator shaft, the Hedges had no idea what would be waiting for them at the bottom of such a dark and cavernous journey, but Tails, Amy, and Sonic knew that all seventy-one bedrooms of the Squalor penthouse would be at the top. And it was these bedrooms-along with the living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms, sitting rooms, standing rooms, ballrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and the assortment of rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all-that would be helpful in rescuing the Quagmires.

"Listen to me," Tails said to her siblings, after they had been climbing for a few minutes. "When we get up to the top, I want the two of you to search the penthouse."

"What?" Amy said, peering down at her brother. "We already searched it yesterday, remember?"

"I don't want you to search it for Gunther," Tails replied. "I want you to search it for long, slender objects made of iron."

"Agoula?" Sonic asked, which meant "What for?"

"I think the easiest way to get the Quagmires out of that cage will be by welding," Tails said. "Welding is when you use something very hot to melt metal. If we melt through a few of the bars of the cage, we can make a door and get Manic and Sonia out of there."

"That's a good idea," Amy agreed. "But I thought that welding required a lot of complicated equipment."

"Usually it does," Tails said. "In a normal welding situation, I'd use a welding torch, which is a device that makes a very small flame to melt the metal. But the Squalors won't have a welding torch-that's a tool, and tools are out. So I'm going to devise another method. When you two find the long, slender objects made of iron, meet me in the kitchen closest to the front door."

"Selrep," Sonic said, which meant something like "That's the one with the bright blue oven."

"Right," Tails said, "and I'm going to use that bright blue oven to heat those iron objects as hot as they can get. When they are burning, burning hot, we will take them back down to the cage and use their heat to melt the bars."

"Will they stay hot long enough to work, after such a long climb down?" Amy asked.

"They'd better," Tails replied grimly. "It's our only hope."

To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left, and that is never pleasant to think about, however true it might be. The three Hedges felt anxious about the fact that Tails' invention was their only hope of rescuing the Quagmires, and they were quiet the rest of the way up the elevator shaft, not wanting to consider what would happen to Manic and Sonia if this only hope didn't work. Finally, they began to see the dim light from the open sliding doors, and at last they were once again at the front door of the Squalors' apartment.

"Remember," Tails whispered, "long, slender objects made of iron. We can't use bronze or silver or even gold, because those metals will melt in

the oven. I'll see you in the kitchen."

The younger Hedges nodded solemnly, and followed two different trails of bread crumbs in opposite directions, while Tails walked straight into the kitchen with the bright blue oven and looked around uncertainly. Cooking had never been her forte-a phrase which here means "something she couldn't do very well, except for making toast, and sometimes she couldn't even do that without burning it to a crisp"-and she was a bit nervous about using the oven without any adult supervision. But then she thought about all the things she had done recently without

adult supervision-sprinkling crumbs on the floor, eating apple butter, climbing down an empty elevator shaft on a ersatz rope made of extension cords, curtain pulls, and neckties tied together with the Devil's Tongue-and stiffened her resolve. She turned the oven's bright blue temperature dial to the highest temperature-500 degrees Fahrenheit-and then, as the oven slowly heated up, began quietly opening and closing the kitchen drawers, looking for three sturdy oven mitts. Oven mitts, as you probably know, are kitchen accessories that serve as ersatz hands by enabling you to pick up objects that would burn your fingers if you touched them directly. The Hedges would have to use oven mitts, Tails realized, once the long, slender objects were hot enough to be used as welding torches. Just as her siblings entered the kitchen, Tails found three oven mitts emblazoned with the fancy, curly writing of the In Boutique stuffed into the bottom of the ninth drawer she had opened.

"We hit the jackpot," Amy whispered, and Sonic nodded in agreement. The two younger Hedges were using an expression which here means "Look at these fire tongs-they're perfect!" and they were absolutely right. "Fireplaces must have been in at some point," Amy explained, holding up three long, slender pieces of iron, "because Sonic remembered that living room with six fireplaces between the ballroom with the green walls and the bathroom with that funny-looking sink. Next to the fireplaces are fire tongs-you know, these long pieces of iron that people use to move logs around to keep a fire going. I figured that if they can touch burning logs, they'll be able to survive a hot oven."

"You really did hit the jackpot," Tails said. "Fire tongs are perfect. Now, when I open the door of the oven, you put them in, Amy. Sonic, stand

back. Babies shouldn't be near a hot oven."

"Prawottle," Sonic said. She meant something like "Older children aren't supposed to be near a hot oven either, especially without adult supervision," but she understood that it was an emergency and crawled to the opposite end of the kitchen, where she could safely watch her older siblings put the long, slender tongs into the hot oven. Like most ovens, the Squalors' bright blue oven was designed for baking cakes and casseroles, not fire tongs, and it was impossible to shut the door of the oven with the long pieces of iron inside. So, as the Hedge orphans waited for the pieces of iron to heat up into welding torches, the kitchen heated up as well, as some of the hot air from the oven escaped out the open door. By the time Amy asked if the welding torches were ready, the kitchen felt as if it were an oven instead of merely containing one.

"Not yet," Tails replied, peering carefully into the open oven door. "The tips of the tongs are just beginning to get yellow with heat. We need them to get white with heat, so it will still be a few minutes."

"I'm nervous," Amy said, and then corrected himself. "I mean I'm anxious. I don't like leaving the Quagmires down there all alone."

"I'm anxious, too," Tails said, "but the only thing we can do now is wait. If we take the iron out of the oven now, it won't be of any use to us by the time we get all the way down to the cage."

Amy and Sonic sighed, but they nodded in agreement with their sister and settled down to wait for the welding torches to be ready, and as they waited, they felt as if this particular kitchen in the Squalor penthouse was being remodeled before their very eyes. When the Hedges had searched the apartment to see if Gunther was hiding in it, they had left crumbs in an assortment of bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms, sitting rooms, standing rooms, bathrooms, ballrooms, and kitchens, as well as those rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all, but the one type of room that the Squalor penthouse lacked was a waiting room. Waiting rooms, as I'm sure you know, are small rooms with plenty of chairs for waiting, as well as piles of old, dull magazines to read and some vapid paintings-the word "vapid" here means "usually containing horses in a field or puppies in a basket"-while you endure the boredom that doctors and dentists inflict on their patients

before bringing them in to poke them and prod them and do all the miserable things that such people are paid to do. It is very rare to have a waiting room in someone's home, because even a home as enormous as the Squalors' does not contain a doctor's or dentist's office, and also because waiting rooms are so uninteresting that you would never want one in the place where you live. The Hedges had certainly never wished that the Squalors had a waiting room in their penthouse, but as they sat and waited for Tails' invention to be ready to use, they felt as if waiting rooms were suddenly in and Eudora had ordered one constructed right there in the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets were not painted with horses in a field or puppies in a basket, and there were no old, dull magazine articles printed on the bright blue stove, but as the three children waited for the iron objects to turn yellow and then orange and then red as they grew hotter and hotter and hotter, they felt the same itchy nervousness as they did when waiting for a trained medical professional.

But at last the fire tongs were white-hot, and were ready for their welding appointment with the thick iron bars of the cage. Tails passed out an oven mitt to each of his siblings and then put the third one on her own hand to carefully remove each tong from the oven. "Hold them very, very carefully," she said, giving an ersatz welding torch to each of her siblings. "They're hot enough to melt metal, so just imagine what they could do if they touched us. But I'm sure we can manage."

"It'll be tougher to go down this time," Amy said, as he followed his sisters to the front door of the penthouse. He held his fire tong straight up, as if it were a regular torch instead of a welding one, and he kept his eye on the white-hot part so that it wouldn't brush up against anything or anybody. "We'll each have to keep one hand free to hold the torch. But I'm sure we can manage."

"Zelestin," Sonic said, when the children reached the sliding doors of the ersatz elevator. She meant something along the lines of "It'll be terrifying to climb down that horrible passageway again," but after she said "Zelestin" she added the word "Enipy," which meant "But I'm sure we can manage," and the youngest Hedge was as sure as her siblings. The three children stood at the edge of the dark passageway, but they did not

pause to gather their courage, as they had done before their first descent into the gaping shaft. Their welding torches were hot, as Tails had said, and going down would be tough, as Amy had said, and the climb would be terrifying, as Sonic had said, but the siblings looked at one another and knew they could manage. The Quagmire triplets were counting on them, and the Hedge orphans were sure that this only hope would work after all.

Nine

One of the greatest myths in the world-and the phrase "greatest myths" is just a fancy way of saying "big fat lies"-is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle and skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, and that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.

Obviously, it was absolutely urgent for the Hedge orphans to take another three-hour climb down into the terrible darkness of the elevator shaft. The children knew that the Quagmire triplets were in grave danger, and that using Tails' invention to melt the bars of the cage was the only way that their friends could escape before Gunther hid them inside one of the items of the In Auction, and smuggled them out of the city. But I'm sorry to say that the absolute urgency of the Hedges' second climb did not make it any less troublesome. The passageway was still as dark as a bar of extra-dark chocolate sitting in a planetarium covered in a thick, black blanket, even with the tiny glow from the white-hot tips of the fire tongs, and the sensation of lowering themselves down the elevator shaft still felt like a descent into the hungry mouth of some terrible creature.

With only the clink! of the last extension cord hitting the lock of the cage to guide them, the three siblings pulled themselves down the ersatz rope with one hand, and held out their welding torches with the other, and the

trek down to the tiny, filthy room where the triplets were trapped was still not even one twenty-seventh O.K.

But the dreadful repetition of the Hedges' troublesome climb was dwarfed in comparison with the sinister surprise they found at the bottom, a surprise so terrible that the three children simply refused to believe it.

Tails reached the end of the final extension cord and thought it was a hallucination. Amy stood looking at the cage and thought that it must be a phantasm. And Sonic peered in through the bars and prayed that it was some combination of the two. The youngsters stared at the tiny, filthy room, and stared at the cage, but it took them several minutes before they believed that the Quagmires were no longer inside.

"They're gone," Tails said. "They're gone, and it's all my fault!" He threw her welding torch into the corner of the tiny room, where it sizzled against the floor. She turned to her siblings, and they could see, by the white glow of their tongs, that their older sister was beginning to cry. "My invention was supposed to save them," she said mournfully, "and now Gunther has snatched them away. I'm a terrible inventor, and a horrible friend."

Amy threw his welding torch into the corner, and gave his sister a hug. "You're the best inventor I know," he said, "and your invention was a good one. Listen to those welding torches sizzle. The time just wasn't ripe for your invention, that's all."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tails said miserably.

Sonic threw the last welding torch into the corner, and took off her oven mitt so she could pat her sister comfortingly on the ankle. "Noque, noque," she said, which meant "There, there."

"All it means," Amy said, "is that you invented something that wasn't handy at this particular time. It's not your fault that we didn't rescue them-it's Gunther's."

"I guess I know that," Tails

said, wiping her eyes. "I'm just sad that the time wasn't ripe for my invention. Who knows if we will ever see our friends again?"

"We will," Amy said. "Just because the time isn't right for your inventing skills, doesn't meant it isn't ripe for my researching skills."

"Dwestall," Sonic said sadly, which meant "All the research in the world

can't help Manic and Sonia now."

"That's where you're wrong, Sonic," Amy replied. "Gunther might have snatched them, but we know where he's taking them-to Veblen Hall. He's going to hide them inside one of the items at the In Auction, remember?" "Yes," Tails said, "but which one?"

"If we climb back up to the penthouse," Amy said, "and go to the Squalor library, I think I can figure it out."

"Meotze," Sonic said, which meant "But the Squalor library has only those snooty books on what's in and what's out."

"You're forgetting the recent addition to the library," Amy said. "Eudora told us that Gunther had left a copy of the In Auction catalog, remember? Wherever he's planning to hide the Quagmires, it'll be listed in the catalog. If we can figure out which item he's hiding them in-"

"We can get them out of there," Tails finished, "before he auctions them off. That's a brilliant idea, Amy!"

"It's no less brilliant than inventing welding torches," Amy said. "I just hope the time is ripe this time."

"Me too," Tails said. "After all, it's our only-"

"Vinung," Sonic said, which meant "Don't say it," and her sister nodded in agreement. There was no use in saying it was their only hope, and getting them as anxious as they were before, so without another word the Hedges hoisted themselves back up on their makeshift rope and began climbing back up to the Squalor penthouse. The darkness closed in on them again, and the children began to feel as if their whole lives had been spent in this deep and shadowy pit, instead of in a variety of locations ranging from a lumbermill in Paltryville to a cave on the shores of Lake Lachrymose to the Hedge mansion, which sat in charred remains just a few blocks away from Dark Avenue. But rather than think about all of the shadowy places in the Hedge past, or the shadowiest place that they were climbing through now, the three siblings tried to concentrate on the brighter places in the Hedge future. They thought of the penthouse apartment, which drew closer and closer to them as they climbed.

They thought of the Squalor library, which could contain the proper information they needed to defeat Gunther's plan. And they thought of

some glorious time that was yet to come, when the Hedges and the Quagmires could enjoy their friendship without the ghastly shadow of evil and greed that hung over them now. The Hedge orphans tried to keep their minds on these bright thoughts of the future as they climbed up the shadowy elevator shaft, and by the time they reached the sliding doors they felt that perhaps this glorious time was not so far off.

"It must almost be morning," Tails said, as he helped Sonic hoist herself out of the elevator doors. "We'd better untie our rope from the doorknob, and shut these doors, otherwise the Squalors will see what we've been up to."

"Why shouldn't they see?" Amy asked. "Maybe then they'd believe us about Gunther."

"No one ever believes us about Gunther, or any of Eggman's other disguises," Tails said, "unless we have some evidence. All we have now is an ersatz elevator, an empty cage, and three cooling fire tongs. That's not evidence of anything."

"I suppose you're right," Amy said. "Well, why don't you two untie the rope, and I'll go straight to the library and start reading the catalog." "Good plan," Tails said.

"Reauhop!" Sonic said, which meant "And good luck!" Amy quietly opened the door of the penthouse and let himself in, and the Hedge sisters began pulling the rope back up the shaft. The end of the last extension cord clinked and clinked against the walls of the passageway as Sonic wound up the ersatz rope until it was a coil of extension cords, curtain pulls, and fancy neckties. Tailsuntied the last double knot to detach it from the doorknob, and turned to her sister.

"Let's store this under my bed," she said, "in case we need it later. It's on the way to the library anyway."

"Yallrel," Sonic added, which meant "And let's shut the sliding elevator doors, so the Squalors don't see that we've been sneaking around an elevator shaft."

"Good thinking," Tails said, and pressed the Up button. The doors slid shut again, and after taking a good look around to make sure they hadn't left anything behind, the two Hedges walked into the penthouse and followed their bread-crumb trail past a breakfast room, down a hallway,

across a standing room, down a hallway, and finally to Tails' room, where they stored the ersatz rope under the bed. They were about to head right to the library when Sonic noticed a note that had been left on Tails' extra-fluffy pillow.

"'Dear Tails,'" read Tails, '"I couldn't find you or your siblings this morning to say good-bye. I had to leave early to buy yellow paper clips and pens before heading over to the In Auction. Eudora will take you to Veblen Hall at ten-thirty sharp, so be sure to be ready, or she'll be very annoyed. See you then! Sincerely yours, Jerome Vector Squalor.'"

"Yikes!" Sonic said, pointing to the nearest of the 618 clocks that the Squalors owned.

"Yikes is right," Tails said. "It's already ten o'clock. All that climbing up and down the elevator shaft took much longer than I thought."

"Wrech," Sonic added, which meant something like "Not to mention making those welding torches."

"We'd better go to the library right away," Tails said. "Maybe we can help Amy speed up the research process in some way."

Sonic nodded in agreement, and the two sisters walked down the hallway to the Squalor library. Since Vector had first shown it to them, Tails and Sonic had scarcely been inside, and it looked like nobody else had used it much, either. A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. Even libraries that were not to the Hedges'

taste-Aunt Josephine's library, for instance, only contained books on grammar-were comfortable places to be in, because the owners of the library used them so much. But the Squalor library was as neat and as dusty as could be. All of the dull books on what was in and what was out sat on the shelves in tidy rows, with layers of dust on top of them as if they hadn't been disturbed since they'd first been placed there. It made the Hedge sisters a little sad to see all those books sitting in the library unread and unnoticed, like stray dogs or lost children that nobody wanted to take home. The only sign of life in the library was their brother, who was reading the catalog so closely that he didn't look up until his sisters were standing at his side.

"I hate to disturb you when you're researching," Tails said, "but there

was a note from Vector on my pillow. Eudora is going to take us to Veblen Hall at ten-thirty sharp, and it's just past ten o'clock now. Is there any way we can help you?"

"I don't see how," Amy said, his eyes looking worried behind his glasses. "There's only one copy of the catalog, and it's pretty complicated. Each of the items for the auction is called a lot, and the catalog lists each lot with a description and a guess at what the highest bid may be. I've read up to Lot #49, which is a valuable postage stamp."

"Well, Gunther can't hide the Quagmires in a postage stamp," Tailssaid. "You can skip that lot."

"I've been skipping lots of lots," Amy said, "but I'm still no closer to figuring out where the triplets will be. Would Gunther hide them in Lot

#14-an enormous globe? Would he hide them under the lid of Lot #25-a rare and valuable piano? Would he hide them in Lot #48- an enormous statue of a scarlet fish?" Amy stopped and turned the page of a catalog. "Or would he hide them in Lot #50, which is-"

Amy ended his sentence in a gasp, but his sisters knew immediately that he did not mean that the fiftieth item to be sold at the In Auction was a sharp intake of breath. He meant he'd discovered something remarkable in the catalog, and they leaned forward to read over his shoulder and see what it was.

"I can't believe it," Tails said. "I simply can't believe it."

"Toomsk," Sonic said, which meant something like "This must be where the Quagmires will be hidden."

"I agree with Sonic," Amy said, "even though there's no description of the item. They don't even write what the letters stand for."

"We'll find out what they stand for," Tails said, "because we're going to find Eudora right this minute, and tell her what's going on. When she finds out, she'll finally believe us about Gunther,

and we'll get the Quagmires out of Lot #50 before they leave the city. You were right, Amy-the time was ripe for your researching skills."

"I guess I was right," Amy said. "I can scarcely believe our luck."

The Hedges looked again at the page of the catalog, making sure that it was neither a hallucination nor a phantasm. And it wasn't. Right there, written in neat black type under the heading "Lot #50," were three letters,

and three punctuation marks, that seemed to spell out the solution to the Hedges' problems. The children looked at one another and smiled. All three siblings could scarcely believe their luck. The Hedge orphans could scarcely believe that those three letters spelled out the hiding place of the Quagmires as clearly as it spelled out "V.F.D."

Ten

"... and one of the items in the catalog is listed as 'V.F.D.,' which is the secret that the Quagmires tried to tell us about right before they were kidnapped," Amy finished.

"This is terrible," Eudora said, and took a sip of the parsley soda she had insisted on pouring for herself before the Hedge orphans could tell her everything they had discovered. Then she had insisted on settling herself on the innest couch in her favorite sitting room, and that the three children sit in three chairs grouped around her in a semicircle, before they could relate the story of Gunther's true identity, the secret passageway behind the sliding elevator doors, the scheme to smuggle the Quagmires out of the city, and the surprising appearance of those three mysterious initials as the description of Lot #50. The three siblings were pleased that their guardian had not dismissed their findings, or argued with them about Gunther or the Quagmires or anything else, but instead had quietly and calmly listened to every detail. In fact, Eudora was so quiet and calm that it was disconcerting, a word which here means "a warning that the Hedge children did not heed in time."

"This is the least smashing thing I have ever heard," Eudora said, taking another sip of her in beverage. "Let me see if I have understood everything you have said. Gunther is in fact Count Eggman in disguise." "Yes," Tailssaid. "His boots are covering up his tattoo, and his monocle makes him scrunch his face up to hide his one eyebrow."

"And he has hidden away the Quagmires in a cage at the bottom of my elevator shaft," Eudora said, putting her soda glass down on a nearby table. "Yes," Amy said. "There's no elevator behind those doors. Somehow Gunther removed it so he could use the shaft as a secret passageway." "And now he's taken the Quagmires out of the cage," Eudora continued, "and is going to smuggle them out of the city by hiding them inside Lot

#50 of the In Auction."

"Kaxret," Sonic said, which meant "You got it, Eudora."

"This is certainly a complicated plot," Eudora said. "I'm surprised that young children such as yourself were able to figure it out, but I'm glad you did." She paused for a moment and removed a speck of dust from one of her fingernails. "And now there's only one thing to do. We'll rush right to Veblen Hall and put a stop to this terrible scheme. We'll have Gunther arrested and the Quagmires set free. We'd better leave right this minute." Eudora stood up, and beckoned to the children with a faint smile. The children followed her out of the sitting room and past twelve kitchens to

the front door, exchanging puzzled glances. Their guardian was right, of course, that they should go to Veblen Hall and expose Gunther and his treachery, but they couldn't help wondering why the city's sixth most important financial advisor was so calm when she said it. The children were so anxious about the Quagmires that they felt as if they were jumping out of their skin, but Eudora led the Hedges out of the penthouse as if they were going to the grocery store to purchase whole wheat flour instead of rushing to an

auction to stop a horrible crime. As she shut the door of the apartment and turned to smile at the children again, the three siblings could see no sign of anxiousness on her face, and it was disconcerting.

"Amy and I will take turns carrying you, Sonic," Tails said, lifting his brother up. "That way the trip down the stairs will be easier for you." "Oh, we don't have to walk down all those stairs," Eudora said.

"That's true," Amy said. "Sliding down the banisters will be much quicker."

Eudora put one arm around the children and began walking them away from the front door. It was nice to receive an affectionate gesture from their guardian, but her arm was wrapped around them so tightly that they could scarcely move, which was also disconcerting. "We won't have to slide down the banisters, either," she said.

"Then how will we get down from the penthouse?" Tails asked.

Eudora stretched out her other arm, and used one of her long fingernails to press the Up button next to the sliding doors. This was the most disconcerting thing of all, but by now, I'm sorry to say, it was too late. "We'll take the elevator," she said, as the doors slid open, and then with one last smile she swept her arm forward and pushed the Hedge orphans into the darkness of the elevator shaft.

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Sometimes words are not enough. There are some circumstances so utterly wretched that I cannot describe them in sentences or paragraphs or even a whole series of books, and the terror and woe that the Hedge orphans felt after Eudora pushed them into the elevator shaft is one of those most dreadful circumstances that can be represented only with two pages of utter blackness. I have no words for the profound horror the children felt as they tumbled down into the darkness. I can think of no

sentence that can convey how loudly they screamed, or how cold the air was as it whooshed around them while they fell. And there is no paragraph I could possibly type that would enable you to imagine how frightened the Hedges were as they plunged toward certain doom.

But I can tell you that they did not die. Not one hair on their heads had been harmed by the time the children finally stopped tumbling through the darkness. They survived the fall from the top of the shaft for the simple reason that they did not reach the bottom. Something broke their fall, a phrase which here means that the Hedges' plunge was stopped halfway between the sliding elevator doors and the metal cage where the Quagmires had been locked up. Something broke their fall without even injuring them, and though it at first felt like a miracle, when the children understood that they were alive, and no longer falling, they reached out their hands and soon realized that it felt a lot more like a net. While the Hedges were reading the catalog of the In Auction, and telling Eudora what they had learned, someone had stretched a rope net across the entire passageway, and it was this net that had stopped the children from plunging to their doom. Far, far above the orphans was the Squalor penthouse, and far, far below them was the cage in the tiny, filthy room with the hallway leading out of it. The Hedge orphans were trapped. But it is far better to be trapped than to be dead, and the three children hugged each other in relief that something had broken their fall. "Spenset," Sonic said, in a voice hoarse from screaming.

"Yes, Sonic," Tails said, holding him close. "We're alive." He sounded as if he were talking as much to himself as to his brother.

"We're alive," Amy said, hugging them both. "We're alive, and we're O.K."

"I wouldn't say you were O.K." Eudora's voice called down to them from the top of the passageway. Her voice echoed off the walls of the passageway, but the children could still hear every cruel word. "You're alive, but you're definitely not O.K. As soon as the auction is over and the Quagmires are on their way out of the city, Gunther will come and get you, and I can guarantee that you three orphans will never be O.K. again. What a wonderful and profitable day! My former acting teacher will finally get his hands on not one but two enormous fortunes!"

"Your former acting teacher?" Tails asked in horror. "You mean you've known Gunther's true identity the entire time?"

"Of course I did," Eudora said. "I just had to fool you kids and my

dim-witted husband into thinking he was really an auctioneer. Luckily, I am a smashing actress, so it was easy to trick you."

"So you've been working together with that terrible villain?" Amy called up to her. "How could you do that to us?"

"He's not a terrible villain," Eudora said. "He's a genius! I instructed the doorman not to let you out of the penthouse until Gunther came and retrieved you, but Gunther convinced me that throwing you down there was a better idea, and he was right! Now there's no way you'll make it to the auction and mess up our plans!"

"Zisalem!" Sonic shrieked.

"My brother is right!" Tails cried. "You're our guardian! You're supposed to be keeping us safe, not throwing us down elevator shafts and stealing our fortune!"

"But I want to steal from you," Eudora said. "I want to steal from you the way Cream stole from me."

"What are you talking about?" Amy asked. "You're already unbelievably wealthy. Why do you want even more money?"

"Because it's in, of course," Eudora said. "Well, toodle-oo, children. 'Toodle-oo' is the in way of saying good-bye to three bratty orphans you're never going to see again."

"Why?" Tails cried. "Why are you treating us so terribly?"

Eudora's answer to this question was the cruelest of all, and like a fall down an elevator shaft, there were no words for her reply. She merely laughed, a loud rude cackle that bounced off the walls of the passageway and then faded into silence as their guardian walked away. The Hedge orphans looked at one another-or tried to look at one another, in the darkness- and

trembled in disgust and fear, shaking the net that had trapped them and saved them at the same time.

"Dielee?" Sonic said miserably, and his siblings knew that he meant "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Amy said, "but we've got to do something."

"And we've got to do it quickly," Tails added, "but this is a very difficult situation. There's no use climbing up or down-the walls feel too smooth, and I don't think I can fly up"

"And there's no use making a lot of noise to try and get someone's attention," Amy said. "Even if anybody hears, they'll just think someone is yelling in one of the apartments."

Tails closed his eyes in thought, although it was so dark that it didn't really make a difference if her eyes were closed or open. "Amy, maybe the time is right for your researching skills," he said after a moment. "Can you think of some moment in history when people got out of a trap like this one?"

"I don't think so," Amy replied sadly. "In the myth of Hercules, he's trapped between two monsters named Scylla and Charybdis, just like we're trapped between the sliding doors and the floor. But he got out of the trap by turning them into whirlpools."

"Glaucus," Sonic said, which meant something like "But we can't do that." "I know," Amy said glumly. "Myths are often entertaining, but they're never very helpful. Maybe the time is ripe for one of Tails' inventions." "But I don't have any materials to work with," Tails said, reaching out his hand to feel the edges of the net. "I can't use this net for an invention, because if I start to tear it up, we'll fall. The net seems to be attached to the walls with little metal pegs that stick into the walls, but I can't pull those out and use them, either. And again I don't think I can fly up either"

"Gyzan?" Sonic asked.

"Yes," Tails replied, "pegs. Feel right here, Sonic. Gunther probably stood on a long ladder to drive these pegs into the walls of the passageway, and then strung the net across the pegs. I guess the walls of the elevator shaft are soft enough that small sharp objects can be stuck into them."

"Thole?" Sonic asked, which meant "Like teeth?" and instantly his siblings knew what she was thinking.

"No, Sonic," Tails said. "You can't climb up the elevator shaft by using your teeth. It's too dangerous."

"Yoigt," Sonic pointed out, which meant something like "But if I fall, I'll just fall back into the net."

"But what if you get stuck halfway up?" Amy asked. "Or what if you lose

a tooth?"

"Vasta," Sonic said, which meant "I'll just have to risk it-it's our only hope," and his siblings reluctantly agreed. They did not like the idea of their baby brother climbing up to the sliding doors

of the ersatz elevator, using only her teeth, but they could think of no other way to escape in time to foil Gunther's plan. The time wasn't ripe for Tails' inventing skills, or for the knowledge Amy had from his reading, but the time was ripe for Sonic's sharp teeth, and the youngest Hedge tilted his head back and then swung forward, sticking one of his teeth into the wall with a rough sound that would make any dentist weep for hours. But the Hedges were not dentists, and the three children listened closely in the darkness to hear if Sonic's tooth would stick as firmly as the net pegs. To their delight they heard nothing-no scraping or sliding or cracking or anything that would indicate that Sonic's teeth wouldn't hold. Sonic even shook his head a little bit to see if that would easily dislodge his tooth from the wall, but it remained a firm toothhold. Sonic swung his head slightly, and embedded another tooth, slightly above the first one. The second tooth stuck, so Sonic carefully eased out the first tooth and inserted it once more in the wall, slightly above the second tooth. By spacing her teeth slightly apart, Sonic had moved a few inches up the wall, and by the time she stuck her first tooth above the second one again, her little body was no longer touching the net.

"Good luck, Sonic," Tails said.

"We're rooting for you, Sonic," Amy said.

Sonic did not reply, but his siblings were not alarmed because they imagined it was difficult to say much when you had a mouthful of wall. So Tails and Amy merely sat on their net and continued to call up encouragement to their baby brother. Had Sonic been able to climb and speak at the same time, she might have said "Soried," which meant something like "So far so good," or "Yaff," which meant "I think I've reached the halfway point," but the two older Hedges heard nothing but the sound of his teeth inserting and detaching themselves in the dark until Sonic triumphantly called down the word "Top!"

"Oh, Sonic!" Amy cried. "You did it!"

"Way to go!" Tails called up. "Now, go get our makeshift rope from under the bed, and we'll climb up and join you."

"Ganba," Sonic called back, and crawled off. The two older siblings sat and waited in the darkness for a while, marveling at their sister's skills.

"I couldn't have climbed all the way up this passageway," Tails said, "not when I was Sonic's age."

"Me neither," Amy said, "although we both have regular-sized teeth." "It's not just the size of his teeth," Tails said, "it's the size of his courage, and the size of his concern for his siblings."

"And the size of the trouble we're in," Amy added, "and the size of our guardian's treachery. I can't believe Eudora was scheming together with Gunther the entire time. She's as ersatz as her elevator."

"Eudora's a pretty good actress," Tails said comfortingly, "even though she's a terrible person. She had us completely fooled that Gunther had her completely fooled. But what was she talking about when she said-" "Tada!" Sonic called down from the sliding doors.

"He has the rope," Tails said excitedly. "Tie it to the doorknob, Sonic, using the Devil's Tongue."

"No," Amy said, "I have a better idea."

"A better idea than climbing out of here?" Tails asked.

"I want to climb out of here," Amy said, "but I don't think we should climb up. Then we'll just be at the penthouse."

"But from the penthouse," Tails said, "we can get to Veblen Hall. We can even slide down the banisters to save time."

"But at the end of the banisters," Amy said, "is the lobby of the building, and in the lobby is a doorman with strict instructions not to let us leave." "I hadn't thought about him," Tails said. "He always follows instructions." "That's why we've got to leave 667 Dark Avenue another way," Amy said. "Ditemu," Sonic called down, which meant something like "What other way is there?"

"Down," Amy said. "That tiny room at the bottom of the elevator shaft has a hallway leading out of it, remember? It's right next to the cage." "That's true," Tails said. "That must be how Gunther snatched the Quagmires away before we could rescue them. But who knows where it leads?"

"Well, if Gunther took the Quagmires down that hallway," Amy said, "it must lead to somewhere near Veblen Hall. And that's precisely where we want to go."

"You're right," Tails said. "Sonic, forget about tying the rope to the doorknob. Someone might see it, anyway, and realize we've escaped. Just bring it down here. Do you think you can bite your way back down?" "Geronimo!" Sonic cried, which meant something like "I don't need to bite my way back down," and the youngest Hedge was right. he took a deep breath, and threw himself down the dark passageway, the coil of ersatz rope trailing behind him. This time, the plunge does not need to be represented by pages of darkness, because the terror of the long, dark fall was alleviated-the word "alleviated" here means "not particularly on Sonic's mind"- because the youngest Hedge knew that a net, and his siblings, were waiting for him at the bottom. With a thump! Sonic landed on the net, and with a slightly smaller thump! the coil of rope

landed next to him. After making sure his brother was unharmed by the fall, Tails began tying one end of their rope to one of the pegs holding the net in place.

"I'll make sure this end of the rope is secured," Tails said. "Sonic, if your teeth aren't too sore from the climb, use them to cut a hole in the net, so we can climb through it."

"What can I do?" Amy asked.

"You can pray this works," Tails said, but the Hedge brothers were so quick with their tasks that there was no time for even the shortest of religious ceremonies. In a matter of moments, Tails had attached the rope to the peg with some complicated and powerful knots, and Sonic had cut a child-sized hole in the middle of the net. Tails dangled the rope down the hole, and the three children listened until they heard the familiar clink! of their ersatz rope against the metal cage. The Hedge orphans paused for a moment at the hole in the net, and stared down into the blackness.

"I can't believe we're climbing down this passageway again," Tails said. "I know what you mean," Amy said. "If someone had asked me, that day at the beach, if I ever thought we'd be climbing up and down an empty elevator shaft in an attempt to rescue a pair of triplets, I would have said

never in a million years. And now we're doing it for the fifth time in twenty-four hours. What happened to us? What led us to this awful place we're staring at now?"

"Misfortune," Tails said quietly.

"A terrible fire," Amy said.

"Eggman," Sonic said decisively, and began crawling down the rope. Amy followed her brother down through the hole in the net, and Tails followed Amy, and the three Hedges made the long trek down the bottom half of the passageway until they reached the tiny, filthy room, the empty cage, and the hallway that they hoped would lead them to the In Auction. Sonic squinted up at their rope, making sure that his siblings had safely reached the bottom. Amy squinted at the hallway, trying to see how long it was, or if there was anybody or anything lurking in it. And Tails squinted in the corner, at the welding torches the children had thrown in the corner when the time had not been ripe to use them.

"We should take these with us," he said.

"But why?" Amy asked. "They've certainly cooled off long ago." "They have," Tails said, picking one up.

"And the tips are all bent from throwing them in the corner. But they still might come in handy for something. We don't know what we'll encounter in that hallway, and I don't want to come up shorthanded. Here, Amy.

Here's yours, and here's Sonic's."

The younger Hedges took the bent, cooled fire tongs, and then, sticking close to one another, all three children took their first few steps down the hallway. In the utter darkness of this terrible place, the fire tongs seemed like long, slender extensions of the Hedges' hands, instead of inventions they were each holding, but this was not what Tails had meant when he said he didn't want them to be short-handed. "Shorthanded" is a word which here means "unprepared," and Tails was thinking that three children alone in a dark hallway holding fire tongs were perhaps a bit more prepared than three children alone in a dark hallway holding nothing at all. And I'm sorry to tell you that the eldest Hedge was absolutely right. The three children couldn't afford to be shorthanded at all, not with the unfair advantage that was lurking at the end of their walk. As they took one cautious step after another, the

Hedge orphans needed to be as longhanded as possible for the element of surprise that was waiting for them when the dark hallway came to an end.

Eleven

The French expression "cul-de-sac" describes what the Hedge orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word into English. The word "de," for instance, is a very common French word, so even if I didn't know a word of French, I would be certain that "de" means "of." The word "sac" is less common, but I am fairly certain that it means something like "mysterious circumstances." And the word "cul" is such a rare French word that I am forced to guess at its translation, and my guess is that in this case it would mean "At the end of the dark hallway, the Hedge children found an assortment," so that the expression "cul-de-sac" here means "At the end of the dark hallway, the Hedge children found an assortment of mysterious circumstances." If the Hedges had been able to choose a French expression that would be waiting for them at the end of the hallway, they might have chosen one that meant "By the time the three children rounded the last dark corner of the corridor, the police had captured Gunther and rescued the Quagmire triplets," or at least "The Hedges were delighted to see that the hallway led straight to Veblen Hall, where the In Auction was taking place." But the end of the hallway proved to be as mysterious and worrisome as the rest of it. The entire length of the hallway was very dark, and it had so many twists and turns that the three children frequently found themselves bumping into the walls. The ceiling of the hallway was very low- Gunther must have had to crouch when he used it for his treacherous plans-and over their heads the three children could hear a variety of noises that told them where the hallway was probably taking them. After the first few curves, they heard the muted voice of the

doorman, and his footsteps as he walked overhead, and the Hedges realized that they must be underneath the lobby of the Squalors' apartment building. After a few more curves, they heard two men discussing ocean decorations, and they realized they must be walking beneath Dark Avenue. And after a few more curves, they heard the rickety rattle of an old trolley that was passing over their heads, and the children knew that the hallway was leading them underneath one of the city's trolley stations. On and on the hallway curved, and the Hedges heard a variety of city sounds-the clopping of horses' hooves, the grinding of factory equipment, the tolling of church bells and the clatter of people dropping things-but when they finally reached the corridor's end, there was no sound over their heads at all. The Hedges stood still and tried to imagine a place in the city where it was absolutely silent.

"Where do you think we are?" Tails asked, straining his ears to listen even more closely. "It's as silent as a tomb up there."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Amy answered, poking the wall with her fire tong. "I can't find which way the hallway curves. I think we might be at a dead end."

"A dead end!" Tails said, and poked the opposite wall with his tong. "It can't be a dead end. Nobody builds a hallway that goes nowhere." "Pratjic," Sonic said, which meant "Gunther must have ended up somewhere if he took this passageway."

"I'm poking every inch of these walls," Amy said grimly, "and there's no door or stairway or curve or anything. It's a dead end, all right. There's no other word for it. Actually, there's a French expression for 'dead end,' but I can't remember what is."

"I guess we have to retrace our steps," Tails said miserably. "I guess we have to turn around, and make our way back down the corridor, and climb up to the net, and have Sonic teeth his way to the penthouse and find some more materials to make an ersatz rope, and climb all the way up to the top floor, and slide down the banisters to the lobby, and sneak past the doorman and run to Veblen Hall."

"Pyetian," Sonic said, which meant something like "We'll never make it there in time to expose Gunther and save the Quagmires."

"I know," Tails sighed. "But I don't know what else we can do. It looks

like we're shorthanded, even with these tongs."

"If we had some shovels," Amy said, "we could try to dig our way out of the hallway, but we can't use the tongs as shovels."

"Tend," Sonic said, which meant "If we had some dynamite, we could blast our way out of the hallway, but we can't use the tongs as dynamite." "But we might be able to use them as noise-makers," Tails said suddenly. "Let's bang on the ceiling with our tongs, and see if we can attract the attention of someone who is passing by."

"It doesn't sound like anyone is passing by," Amy said, "but it's worth a try. Here, Sonic, I'll pick you up so your tong can reach the ceiling, too." Amy picked his sister up, and the three children began to bang on the ceiling, planning to make a racket that would last for several minutes. But as soon as the their tongs first hit the ceiling, the Hedges were showered with black dust. It rained down on them like a dry, filthy storm, and the children had to cut short their banging to cough and rub their eyes and spit out the dust that had fallen into their mouths.

"Ugh!" Tails spat. "This tastes terrible." "It tastes like burned toast," Amy said. "Peflob!" Sonic shrieked.

At that, Tails stopped coughing, and licked the tip of her finger in thought. "It's ashes," he said. "Maybe we're below a fireplace."

"I don't think so," Amy said. "Look up."

The Hedges looked up, and saw that the black dust had uncovered a very small stripe of light, barely as wide as a pencil. The children gazed up into it, and could see the morning sun gazing right back at them. "Tisdu?" Sonic said, which meant "Where in the city can you find ashes outdoors?"

"Maybe we're below a barbeque pit," Amy said.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough," Tails replied, and began to sweep more dust away from the ceiling. As it fell on the children in a thick, dark cloud, the skinny stripe of light became four skinny stripes, like a drawing of a square on the ceiling. By the light of the square, the Hedges could see a pair of hinges. "Look," Tails said, "it's a trapdoor. We couldn't see it in the darkness of the hallway, but there it is."

Amy pressed her tong against the trapdoor to try to open it, but it didn't

budge. "It's locked, of course," she said. "I bet Gunther locked it behind him when he took the Quagmires away."

Tails looked up at the trapdoor, and the other children could see, by the light of the sun streaming in, that she was tying his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes. "A lock isn't going to stop us," he said. "Not when we've come all this way. I think the time is finally ripe for these

tongs-not as welding torches, and not as noisemakers." he smiled, and turned her attention to her siblings. "We can use them as crowbars," she said excitedly.

"Herdiset?" Sonic asked.

"A crowbar is a sort of portable lever," Tails said, "and these tongs will work perfectly. We'll stick the bent end into the part where the light is shining through, and then push the rest of the tong sharply down. It should bring the trapdoor down with it. Understand?"

"I think so," Amy said. "Let's try." The Hedges tried. Carefully, they stuck the part of the tongs that had been heated in the oven into one side of the square of light. And then, grunting with the effort, they pushed the straight end of the tongs down as sharply as they could, and I'm happy to report that the crowbars worked perfectly. With a tremendous crackling sound and another cloud of ashes, the trapdoor bent on its hinges and opened toward the children, who had to duck as it swung over their heads. Sunlight streamed into the hallway, and the Hedges saw that they had finally come to the end of their long, dark journey. "It worked!" Tails cried. "It really worked!"

"The time was ripe for your inventing skills!" Amy cried. "The solution was right on the tip of our tongs!"

"Up!" Sonic shrieked, and the children agreed. By standing on tiptoe, the Hedges could grab ahold of the hinges and pull themselves out of the hallway, leaving behind their crowbars, and in a moment the three children were squinting in the sunlight.

One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a

family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word which here means "some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time when the Hedge orphans lived in it." The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map's twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this map as carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Hedge children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger wooden box so I can sit at my desk and look once again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines indicating the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends at the trapdoor that the Hedges managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, any more than the youngsters could believe theirs.

The siblings had been in darkness for so long that their eyes took a long time to get used to properly lit surroundings, and they stood for a moment, rubbing their eyes and trying to see exactly where the trapdoor

had led them. But in the sudden brightness of the morning sun, the only thing the children could see was the chubby shadow of a stoat standing near them.

"Excuse me," Tails called, while his eyes were still adjusting. "We need to get to Veblen Hall. It's an emergency. Could you tell me where it is?" "Ju-just two blo-blocks that way," the shadow stuttered, and the children gradually realized that it was a slightly overweight mailman, pointing down the street and looking at the children fearfully. "Please don't hurt me," the mailman added, stepping away from the youngsters.

"We're not going to hurt you," Amy said, wiping ashes off her glasses. "Ghosts always say that," the mailman said, "but then they hurt you anyway."

"But we're not ghosts," Tails said.

"Don't tell me you're not ghosts," the mailman replied. "I saw you rise out of the ashes myself, as if you had come from the center of the earth.

People have always said it's haunted here on the empty lot where the Hedge mansion burned down, and now I know it's true."

The mailman ran away before the Hedges could reply, but the three children were too amazed by his words to speak to him anyway. They blinked and blinked in the morning sun, and finally their eyes adjusted enough to see that the mailman was right. It was true. It was not true that the three children were ghosts, of course. They were not spooky creatures who had risen from the center of the earth, but three orphans who had hoisted themselves out of the hallway. But the mailman had spoken the truth when he had told them where they were. The Hedge orphans looked around them, and huddled together as if they were still in a dark hallway instead of outdoors in broad daylight, standing amid the ashy ruins of their destroyed home.

Twelve

Several years before the Hedges were born, Veblen Hall won the prestigious Door Prize, an award given each year to the city's

best-constructed opening, and if you ever find yourself standing in front of Veblen Hall, as the Hedge orphans did that morning, you will immediately see why the committee awarded the shiny pink trophy to the

door's polished wooden planks, its exquisite brass hinges and its gorgeous, shiny doorknob, fashioned out of the world's second-finest crystal. But the three siblings were in no state to appreciate architectural detail. Tails led the way up the stairs to Veblen Hall and grabbed the doorknob without a thought to the ashy smear he would leave on its polished surface. If I had been with the Hedges, I never would have opened the award-winning door. I would have considered myself lucky to have gotten out of the net suspended in the middle of the elevator shaft, and to have escaped Gunther's evil plan, and I would have fled to some remote corner of the world and hid from Gunther and his associates for the rest of my life rather than risk another encounter with this treacherous villain-an encounter, I'm sorry to say, that will only bring more misery into the three orphans' lives. But these three children were far more courageous than I shall ever be, and they paused just for a moment to gather all of this courage up and use it.

"Beyond this doorknob," Tails said, "is our last chance at revealing Gunther's true identity and his terrible plans."

"Just past those brass hinges," Amy said, "is our final opportunity to save the Quagmires from being smuggled out of the country."

"Sorusu," Sonic said, which meant "Behind those wooden planks lies the answer to the mystery of V.F.D., and why the secret hallway led us to the place where the Hedge mansion burned to the ground, killing our parents, and beginning the series of unfortunate events that haunt us wherever we go."

The Hedges looked at one another and stood up as straight as they could, as if their backbones were as strong as their courage, and Tails opened the door of Veblen Hall; and instantly the orphans found themselves in the middle of a hubbub, a word which here means "a huge crowd of people in an enormous, fancy room." Veblen Hall had a very high ceiling, a very shiny floor, and one massive window that had won first runner-up for the Window Prize the previous year. Hanging from the ceiling were three huge banners, one with the word "In" written on it, one with the word "Auction" written on it, and one last one, twice as big as the others, with a huge portrait of Gunther. Standing on the floor were at least two hundred people, and the Hedges could tell that it was a very

in crowd. Almost everyone was wearing pinstripe suits, sipping tall frosty glasses of parsley soda, and eating salmon puffs offered by some costumed waiters from Café Salmonella, which had apparently been hired to cater the auction. The Hedges were in regular clothes rather than pinstripes, and they were covered in dirt from the tiny, filthy room at the bottom of the elevator shaft, and in ashes from the Hedge lot where the hallway had led them. The in crowd would have frowned upon such attire had they noticed the children, but everyone was too busy gazing at the far end of the room to turn around and see who had walked through the award-winning door.

For at the far end of Veblen Hall, underneath the biggest banner and in front of the massive window, Gunther was standing up on a small stage and speaking into a microphone. On one side of him was a small glass vase with blue and yellow flowers painted on it, and on the other was Eudora, who was sitting in a fancy chair and gazing at Gunther as if he were the cat's pajamas, a phrase which here means "a charming and handsome gentleman instead of a cruel and dishonest villain."

"Lot #46, please," Gunther was saying into the microphone. With all of their exploration of dark passageways, the Hedges had almost forgotten that Gunther was pretending that he wasn't fluent in English. "Please, gentlemen and ladies, see the vase with blue flowers. Vases in. Glass in. Flowers in, please, especially the flowers that are blue and yellow. Who bid?"

"One hundred," called out a voice from the crowd. "One hundred fifty," another voice said.

"Two hundred," another said.

"Two hundred fifty," returned the person who had bid first. "Two hundred fifty-three," another said.

"We're just in time," Amy whispered to Tails. "V.F.D, is Lot #50. Do we wait to speak up until then, or do we confront Gunther right now?"

"I don't know," Tails whispered back. "We were so focused on getting to Veblen Hall in time that we forgot to think up a plan of action."

"Is two hundred fifty-three last bidding of people, please?" Gunther asked, into the microphone. "O.K. Here is vase, please. Give money, please, to Mrs. Squalor." A pinstriped stoat walked to the edge of the stage and

handed a stack of bills to Eudora, who smiled greedily and handed her the vase in exchange. Watching Eudora count the pile of bills and then calmly place them in her pinstripe purse, while somewhere backstage the Quagmires were trapped inside whatever V.F.D. was, made the Hedges feel sick to their stomachs.

"Evomer," Sonic said, which meant "I can't stand it any longer. Let's tell everyone in this room what is really going on."

"Excuse me," said somebody, and the three children looked up to see a stern-looking wolf peering down at them from behind some very large sunglasses. He was holding a salmon puff in one hand and pointing at the Hedges with the other. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave Veblen Hall at once," he said. "This is the In Auction. It's no place for grimy little children like yourselves."

"But we're supposed to be here," Tails said, thinking quickly. "We're meeting our guardians."

"Don't make me laugh," the man said, although it looked like he had never laughed in his life. "What sort of people would be caring for such dirty little kids?"

"Jerome Vector and Eudora Squalor," Amy said. "We've been living in their penthouse."

"We'll see about this," the man said. "Jerry, get over here!"

At the sound of the man's raised voice, a few people turned around and looked at the children, but almost everyone kept listening to Gunther as he began to auction off Lot #47, which he explained was a pair of ballet slippers, please, made of chocolate. Jerome Vector detached himself from a small circle of people and walked over to the stern man to see what the matter was. When he caught sight of the orphans, he looked as if you could have knocked him over with a feather, a phrase which here means he seemed happy but extremely surprised to see them.

"I'm very happy to see you," he said, "but extremely surprised. Eudora told me you weren't feeling very well."

"So you know these children, Jerome Vector ?" the man in sunglasses said.

"Of course I know them," Jerome Vector replied. "They're the Hedges. I was just telling you about them."

"Oh yes," the man said, losing interest. "Well, if they're orphans, then I

guess it's O.K. for them to be here. But Jerry, you've got to buy them some new clothes!"

The man walked away before Jerome Vector could reply. "I don't like to be called Jerry," he admitted to the children, "but I don't like to argue with him, either. Well, Hedges, are you feeling better?"

The children stood for a moment and looked up at their guardian. They noticed that he had a half-eaten salmon puff in his hand, even though he had told the siblings that he didn't like salmon. Jerome Vector had probably not wanted to argue with the waiters in the salmon costumes, either. The Hedges looked at him, and then looked at one another. They did not feel better at all. They knew that Jerome Vector would not want to argue with them if they told him once more about Gunther's true identity. He would not want to argue with Eudora if they told him about her part in the treacherous scheme. And he would not want to argue with Gunther if they told him that the Quagmires were trapped inside one of the items at the In Auction. The Hedges did not feel better at all as they realized that the only person who could help them was someone who could be knocked over with a feather.

"Menrov?" Sonic said.

"Menrov?" Jerome Vector repeated, smiling down at the littlest Hedge. "What does 'Menrov?' mean?"

"I'll tell you what it means," Amy said, thinking quickly. Perhaps there was a way to have Jerome Vector help them, without making him argue with anyone. "It means 'Would you do us a favor, Jerome Vector ?'"

Tails and Sonic looked at their sister curiously. "Menrov?" didn't mean "Would you do us a favor, Jerome Vector ?" and Amy most certainly knew it. "Menrov?" meant something more like "Should we try to tell Jerome Vector about Gunther and Eudora and the Quagmire triplets?" but the sisters kept quiet, knowing that Amy must have a good reason to lie to his guardian.

"Of course I'll do you a favor," Jerome Vector said. "What is it?"

"My brothers and I would really like to own one of the lots at this auction," Amy said. "We were wondering if you might buy it for us, as a gift."

"I suppose so," Jerome Vector said. "I didn't know you three were interested in in items."

"Oh, yes," Tailssaid, understanding at once what Amy was up to. "We're

very anxious to own Lot #50-V.F.D."

"V.F.D.?" Jerome Vector asked. "What does that stand for?"

"It's a surprise," Amy said quickly. "Would you bid for it?"

"If it's very important to you," Jerome Vector said, "I suppose I will, but I don't want you to get spoiled. You certainly arrived in time. It looks like Gunther is just finishing the bidding on those ballet shoes, so we're coming right up to Lot #50. Let's go watch the auction from where I was standing. There's an excellent view of the stage, and there's a friend of yours standing with me."

"A friend of ours?" Tailsasked.

"You'll see," Jerome Vector said, and they did see. When they followed Jerome Vector across the enormous room to watch the auction underneath the "In" banner, they found Mr. Silver Poe, holding a glass of parsley soda and coughing into his white handkerchief.

"You could knock me over with a feather," Mr. Silver Poe said, when he was done coughing. "What are you Hedges doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Amy asked. "You told us you would be on a helicopter ride to a mountain peak."

Mr. Silver Poe paused to cough into his white handkerchief again. "The reports about the mountain peak turned out to be false," Mr. Silver Poe said, when the coughing fit had passed. "I now know for certain that the Quagmire twins are being forced to work at a glue factory nearby. I'm heading over there later, but I wanted to stop by the In Auction. Now that I'm Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs, I'm making more money, and my wife wanted to see if I could buy a bit of ocean decoration."

"But-" Tailsstarted to say, but Mr. Silver Poe shushed her.

"Shush," he said. "Gunther is beginning Lot #48, and that's what I want to bid on."

"Please, Lot #48," Gunther announced. His shiny eyes regarded the crowd from behind his monocle, but he did not appear to spot the Hedges. "Is large statue of fish, painted red, please. Very big, very in. Big enough to sleep inside this fish, if you are in the mood, please. Who bid?"

"I bid, Gunther," Mr. Silver Poe called out. "One hundred." "Two hundred," called out another voice from the crowd.

Amy leaned in close to Mr. Silver Poe to talk to him without Jerome Vector hearing.

"Mr. Silver Poe, there's something you should know about Gunther," he said, thinking that if he could convince Mr. Silver Poe, then the Hedges wouldn't have to continue their charade, a word which here means "pretending to want V.F.D. so Jerome Vector would bid on it and save the Quagmires without knowing it."

"He's really-"

"An in auctioneer, I know," Mr. Silver Poe finished for him, and bid again. "Two hundred six."

"Three hundred," replied the other voice.

"No, no," Tailssaid. "He's not really an auctioneer at all. He's Count Eggman in disguise."

"Three hundred twelve," Mr. Silver Poe called out, and then frowned down at the children. "What!?" he said to them. "I don't know if you have a fear of forigners or not but, him, Count Eggman?"

"Four hundred," called out the other voice.

"The word is 'xenophobia,'" Amy said, "but it doesn't apply here, because Gunther's not really a foreigner. He's not even really Gunther!"

Mr. Silver Poe took out his handkerchief again, and the Hedges waited as he coughed into it before replying. "Eudora had made an threating conversation with me," he said finally. "She said that if I accuse him of beaing Count Eggman I will loose my job, so lets not talk about it please? I want to believe you, after 4 or 5 times you were right. But I cant. I am sorry. I bid four hundred nine!"

"Five hundred," called out the other voice.

"I give up," Mr. Silver Poe said, and coughed into his handkerchief. "Five hundred is too much to pay for a big herring statue."

"Five hundred is highest bid, please," Gunther said, and smiled at someone in the crowd. "Please will the winner give money to Mrs. Squalor, please."

"Why, look, children," Jerome Vector said. "The doorman bought that big red fish."

"The doorman?" Mr. Silver Poe said, as the doorman handed Eudora a sack of coins and, with difficulty, lifted the enormous red fish statue off the stage, his hands still hidden in his long, long sleeves. "I'm surprised that a doorman can afford to buy anything at the In Auction."

"He told me once he was an actor, too," Jerome Vector said. "He's an interesting fellow. Care to meet him?"

"That's very nice of you," Mr. Silver Poe said, and coughed into his handkerchief. "I'm certainly meeting all sorts of interesting people since my promotion." The doorman was struggling past the children with his scarlet herring when Jerome Vector tapped him on the shoulder. "Come meet Mr. Silver Poe," he said. "I don't have time to meet anyone," the doorman replied. "I have to get this in the boss's truck and-" The doorman stopped midsentence when he caught sight of the Hedge children. "You're not supposed to be here!" he said. "You're not supposed to have left the penthouse."

"Oh, but they're feeling better now," Jerome Vector said, but the doorman wasn't listening. He had turned around-swatting several pinstripe members of the crowd with his fish statue as he did so-and was calling up to the people on the stage. "Hey, boss!" he said, and both Eudora and Gunther turned to look as he pointed at the three Hedges. "The orphans are here!"

Eudora gasped, and she was so affected by the element of surprise that she almost dropped her sack of coins, but Gunther merely turned his head and looked directly at the children. His eyes shone very, very brightly, even the one behind his monocle, and the Hedges were horrified

to recognize his expression. Gunther was smiling as if he had just told a joke, and it was an expression he wore when his treacherous mind was working its hardest.

"Orphans in," he said, still insisting on pretending that he could not speak English properly. "O.K. for orphans to be here, please." Eudora looked curiously at Gunther, but then shrugged, and gestured to the doorman with a long-nailed hand that everything was O.K. The doorman shrugged back at her, and then gave the Hedges a strange smile and walked out of the award-winning door. "We will skip Lot #49, golden cup, please," Gunther continued. "We will bid on Lot #50, please, and then, please, auction is over."

"But what about all the other items?" someone called.

"Skip 'em," Eudora said dismissively. "I've made enough money today." "I never thought I'd hear Eudora say that," Jerome Vector murmured.

"Lot #50, please," Gunther announced, and pushed an enormous cardboard box onto the stage. It was as big as the fish statue-just the right size for storing two small children. The box had "V.F.D." printed on it

in big black letters, and the Hedges saw that some tiny airholes had been poked in the top. The three siblings could picture their friends, trapped inside the box and terrified that they were about to be smuggled out of the city. "V.F.D. please," Gunther said. "Who bid?"

"I bid twenty," Jerome Vector said, and winked at the children. "What in the world is 'V.F.D.'?" Mr. Silver Poe asked.

Tails knew that she had no time to try to explain everything to Mr. Silver Poe. "It's a surprise," she said. "Stick around and find out."

"Fifty," said another voice, and the Hedges turned to see that this second bid had come from the man in sunglasses who had asked them to leave.

"That doesn't look like one of Gunther's assistants," Amy whispered to his sisters.

"You never know," Tailsreplied. "They're hard to spot."

"Fifty-five," Jerome Vector called out. Eudora frowned at him, and then gave the Hedges a very mean glare.

"One hundred," the man in sunglasses said.

"Goodness, children," Jerome Vector said. "This is getting very expensive. Are you sure you want this V.F.D.?"

"You're buying this for the children?" Mr. Silver Poe said. "Please, Mr. Squalor, don't spoil these youngsters."

"He's not spoiling us!" Tailssaid, afraid that Gunther would stop the bidding. "Please, Jerome Vector , please buy Lot #50 for us. We'll explain everything later."

Jerome Vector sighed. "Very well," he said. "I guess it's only natural that you'd want some in things, after spending time with Eudora. I bid one hundred eight."

"Two hundred," the man in sunglasses said. The Hedges craned their necks to try and get a better look at him, but the man in sunglasses didn't look any more familiar.

"Two hundred four," Jerome Vector said, and then looked down at the children. "I won't bid any higher, children. This is getting much too expensive, and bidding is too much like arguing for me to enjoy it."

"Three hundred," the man in sunglasses said, and the Hedge children looked at one another in horror. What could they do? Their friends were

about to slip out of their grasp.

"Please, Jerome Vector ," Tailssaid. "I beg of you, please buy this for us." Jerome Vector shook his head. "Someday you'll understand," he said. "It's not worth it to spend money on silly in things."

Amy turned to Mr. Silver Poe. "Mr. Silver Poe," he said, "would you be willing to loan us some money from the bank?"

"To buy a cardboard box?" Mr. Silver Poe said. "I should say not. Ocean decorations are one thing, but I don't want you children wasting money on a box of something, no matter what it is."

"Final bid is three hundred, please," Gunther said, turning and giving Eudora a monocled wink. "Please, sir, if-"

"Thousand!"

Gunther stopped at the sound of a new bidder for Lot #50. Eudora's eyes widened, and she grinned at the thought of putting such an enormous sum in her pinstripe purse. The in crowd looked around, trying to figure out where this new voice was coming from, but nobody suspected such a long and valuable word would originate in the mouth of a tiny baby who was no bigger than a salami.

"Thousand!" Sonic shrieked again, and her siblings held their breath. They knew, of course, that their sister had no such sum of money, but they hoped that Gunther could not see where this bid was coming from, and would be too greedy to find out. The ersatz auctioneer looked at Eudora, and then again out into the crowd.

"Where in the world did Sonic get that kind of money?" Jerome Vector asked Mr. Silver Poe.

"Well, when the children were in boarding school," Mr. Silver Poe answered, "Sonic worked as a receptionist, but I had no idea that her salary was that high."

"Thousand!" Sonic insisted, and finally Gunther gave in.

"The highest bid is now one thousand," he said, and then remembered to pretend that he wasn't fluent in English. "Please," he added.

"Good grief!" the man in sunglasses said. "I'm not going to pay more than one thousand for V.F.D. It's not worth it."

"It is to us," Tailssaid fiercely, and the three children walked toward the stage. Every eye in the crowd fell on the siblings as they left an ashy trail

behind them on their way to the cardboard box. Jerome Vector looked confused.

Mr. Silver Poe looked befuddled, a word which here means "as confused

as Jerome Vector ." Eudora looked vicious. The man in sunglasses looked like he had lost an auction. And Gunther kept smiling, as if a joke he had told was only getting funnier and funnier. Tailsand Amy climbed up on the stage and then hoisted Sonic up alongside them, and the three orphans looked fiercely at the terrible man who had imprisoned their friends.

"Give your thousand, please, to Mrs. Squalor," Gunther said, grinning down at the children. "And then auction is over."

"The only thing that is over," Amy said, "is your horrible plan."

"Silko!" Sonic agreed, and then, using her teeth even though they were still sore from climbing up the elevator shaft, the youngest Hedge bit into the cardboard box and began ripping it apart, hoping that she wasn't hurting Manic and Sonia Quagmire as she did so.

"Wait a minute, kids!" Eudora snarled, getting out of her fancy chair and stomping over to the box. "You can't open the box until you give me the money. That's illegal!"

"What is illegal," Amy said, "is auctioning off children. And soon this whole room will see that you have broken the law!"

"What?" Mr. Silver Poe asked, striding toward the stage. Jerome Vector followed him, looking from the orphans to his wife in confusion.

"The Quagmire triplets are in this box," Tails explained, helping his brother tear it open. "Gunther and Eudora are trying to smuggle them out of the country."

"What?" Jerome Vector cried. "Eudora, is this true?"

Eudora did not reply, but in a moment everyone would see if it was true or not. The children had torn away a large section of the cardboard, and they could see a layer of white paper inside, as if Gunther had wrapped up the Quagmires the way you might have the butcher wrap up a pair of chicken breasts.

"Hang on, Manic!" Tailscalled, into the paper. "Just a few more seconds, Isadora! We're getting you out of there!"

Mr. Silver Poe frowned, and coughed into his white handkerchief. "Now look here, Hedges," he said sternly, when his coughing spell was over, "I have reliable information that the Quagmires are in a glue factory, not

inside a cardboard box."

"We'll see about that," Amy said, and Sonic gave the box another big bite. With a loud shredding sound it split right down the middle, and the contents of the box spilled out all over the stage. It is necessary to use the expression "a red herring" to describe what was inside the cardboard box. A red herring, of course, is a type of fish, but it is also an expression that means "a distracting and misleading clue." Gunther had used the initials V.F.D. on the box to mislead the Hedges into thinking that their friends were trapped inside, and I'm sorry to tell you that the Hedges did not realize it was a red herring until they looked around the stage and saw what the box contained.

Thirteen

"These are doilies'" Tailscried. "This box is full of doilies!" And it was true. Scattered around the stage, spilling out of the remains of the cardboard box, were hundreds and hundreds of small, round napkins with a strip of lace around them-the sort of napkins that you might use to decorate a plate of cookies at a fancy tea party.

"Of course," the man in sunglasses said. He approached the stage and removed his sunglasses, and the Hedges could see that he wasn't one of Gunther's associates after all. He was just a bidder, in a pinstripe suit. "I was going to give them to my brother for a birthday present. They're Very Fancy Doilies. What else could V.F.D. stand for?"

"Yes," Gunther said, smiling at the children. "What else could it stand for, please?"

"I don't know," Tailssaid, "but the Quagmires didn't find out a secret about fancy napkins. Where have you put them, Eggman?"

"What is Eggman, please?" Gunther asked.

"Now, Tails," Jerome Vector said. "We agreed that we wouldn't argue about Gunther anymore. Please excuse these children, Gunther. I think they must be ill."

"We're not ill!" Amy cried. "We've been tricked! This box of doilies was a red herring!"

"But the red herring was Lot #48," someone in the crowd said. "Children, I'm very disturbed by your behavior," Mr. Silver Poe said. "You look like you haven't washed in a week. You're spending your money on ridiculous items. You run around accusing everybody of being Count Eggman in disguise. And now you've made a big mess of doilies on the floor.

Someone is likely to trip and fall on all these slippery napkins. I would

have thought that the Squalors would be raising you better than this." "Well, we're not going to raise them anymore," Eudora said. "Not after they've made such a spectacle of themselves. Mr. Silver Poe, I want these terrible children placed out of my care. It's not worth it to have orphans, even if they're in."

"Eudora!" Jerome Vector cried. "They lost their parents! Where else can they go?" "Don't argue with me," Eudora snapped, "and I'll tell you where they can go. They can-"

"With me, please," Gunther said, and placed one of his scraggly hands on Amy shoulder. Amy remembered when this treacherous villain had plotted to marry her, and shuddered underneath his greedy fingers. "I am loving of the children. I would be happy, please, to raise three children of my own." He put his other scraggly hand on Tails' shoulder, and then stepped forward as if he was going to put one of his boots on Sonic's shoulder so all three Hedges would be locked in a sinister embrace.

But Gunther's foot did not land on Sonic's shoulder. It landed on a doily, and in a second Mr. Silver Poe's prediction that someone would trip and fall came true. With a papery thump! Gunther was suddenly on the ground, his arms flailing wildly in the doilies and his legs flailing madly on the floor of the stage. "Please!" he shouted as he hit the

ground, but his wiggling limbs only made him slip more, and the doilies began to spread out across the stage and fall to the floor of Veblen Hall. The Hedges watched the fancy napkins flutter around them, making flimsy, whispering sounds as they fell, but then they heard two weighty sounds, one after the other, as if Gunther's fall had made something heavier fall to the floor, and when they turned their heads to follow the sound, they saw Gunther's boots lying on the floor, one at Jerome Vector 's feet and one at Mr. Silver Poe's.

"Please!" Gunther shouted again, as he struggled to stand up, but when he finally got to his feet, everyone else in the room was looking at them. "Look!" the man who had been wearing sunglasses said. "The auctioneer wasn't wearing any socks! That's not very polite!"

"And look!" someone else said. "He has a doily stuck between two of his toes! That's not very comfortable!"

"And look!" Jerome Vector said. "He has a tattoo of an eye on his ankle! He's not

Gunther!"

"I knew it!" Mr. Silver Poe cried. "He's not even a foreigner! He's Count Eggman!"

"He's more than Count Eggman," Eudora said, walking slowly toward the terrible villain. "He's a genius! He's a wonderful acting teacher! And he's the handsomest, innest man in town!"

"Don't be absurd!" Jerome Vector said. "Ruthless kidnapping villains aren't in!" "You're right," said Count Eggman, and what a relief it is to call him by his proper name. Eggman tossed away his monocle and put his arm around Eudora. "We're not in. We're out-out of the city! Come on, Eudora!"

With a shriek of laughter, Eggman took Eudora's hand and leaped from the stage, elbowing aside the in crowd as he began running toward the exit. "They're escaping!" Tails cried, and jumped off the stage to chase after them. Amy and Sonic followed as fast as their legs could carry them, but Eggman and Eudora had longer legs, which in this case was just as unfair an advantage as the element of surprise. By the time the Hedges had run to the banner with Gunther's face on it, Eggman and Eudora had reached the banner with "Auction" printed on it, and by the time the children reached that banner, the two villains had run past the "In" banner and through the award-winning door of Veblen Hall.

"Egad!" Mr. Silver Poe cried. "We can't let that dreadful man escape for the sixth time! After him, everyone! That man is wanted for a wide variety of violent and financial crimes!"

The in crowd sprang into action, and began chasing after Eggman and Eudora, and you may choose to believe, as this story nears its conclusion, that with so many people chasing after this wretched villain, it would be impossible for him to escape. You may wish to close this book without finishing it, and imagine that Eggman and Eudora were captured, and that the Quagmire triplets were rescued, and that the true meaning of V.F.D. was discovered and that the mystery of the secret hallway to the ruined Hedge mansion was solved and that everyone held a delightful picnic to celebrate all this good fortune and that there were enough ice cream sandwiches to go around. I certainly wouldn't blame you for imagining these things, because I imagine them all the time. Late at night, when not even the map of the city can comfort me, I close my eyes and imagine

all those happy comforting things surrounding the Hedge children, instead of all those doilies that surrounded them and brought yet another scoop of misfortune into their lives. Because when Count Eggman and Eudora Squalor flung open the door of Veblen Hall, they let in an afternoon breeze that made all the very fancy doilies flutter over the Hedges' heads and then settle back down on the floor behind them, and in one slippery moment the entire in crowd was falling all over one another in a papery, pinstripe blur. Mr. Silver Poe fell on Jerome Vector . Jerome Vector fell on the man who had been wearing sunglasses, and his sunglasses fell on the woman who had bid highest on Lot #47. That woman dropped her chocolate ballet slippers, and those slippers fell on Count Eggman's boots, and those boots fell on three more doilies that made four more people slip and fall on one another and soon the entire crowd was in a hopeless tangle. But the Hedges did not even glance back to see the latest grief that the doilies had caused. They kept their eyes on the pair of loathsome people who were running down the steps of Veblen Hall toward a big black pickup truck. Behind the wheel of the pickup truck was the doorman, who had finally done the sensible thing and rolled up his oversized sleeves, but that must have been a difficult task, for as the children gazed into the truck they caught a glimpse of two hooks where the doorman's hands should have been.

"The hook-handed man!" Amy cried. "He was right under our noses the entire time!"

Count Eggman turned to sneer at the children just as he reached the pickup truck. "He might have been right under your noses," he snarled, "but soon he will be at your throats. I'll be back, Hedges! Soon the Quagmire sapphires will be mine, but I haven't forgotten about your fortune!" "Gonope?" Sonic shrieked, and Tailswas quick to translate.

"Where are Manic and Isadora?" she said. "Where have you taken them?"

Eggman and Eudora looked at one another, and burst into laughter as they slipped into the black truck. Eudora jerked a long-nailed thumb toward the flatbed, which is the word for the back part of a pickup where things are stored. "We used two red herrings to fool you," she said, as the truck's engine roared into life. The children could see, in the back of the truck,

the big red herring that had been Lot #48 in the In Auction.

"The Quagmires!" Amy cried. "Eggman has them trapped inside that statue!" The orphans raced down the steps of the hall, and once again, you may find it more pleasant to put down this book, and close your eyes, and imagine a better ending to this tale than the one that I must write. You may imagine, for instance, that as the Hedges reached the truck, they heard the sound of the engine stalling, instead of the tooting of the horn as the hook-handed man drove his bosses away. You may imagine that the children heard the sounds of the Quagmires escaping from the statue of the herring, instead of the word "Toodle-oo!" coming from Eudora's villainous mouth. And you may imagine the sound of police sirens as Count Eggman was caught at last, instead of the weeping of the Hedge orphans as the black truck rounded the corner and disappeared from view. But your imaginings would be ersatz, as all imaginings are. They are as untrue as the ersatz auctioneer who found the Hedges at the Squalors' penthouse, and the ersatz elevator outside their front door and the ersatz guardian who pushed them down the deep pit of the elevator

shaft. Eudora hid her evil plan behind her reputation as the city's sixth most important financial advisor, and Count Eggman hid his identity behind a monocle and some black boots, and the dark passageway hid its secrets behind a pair of sliding elevator doors, but as much as it pains me to tell you that the Hedge orphans stood on the steps of Veblen Hall, weeping with anguish and frustration as Count Eggman rode away with the Quagmire triplets, I cannot hide the unfortunate truths of the Hedges' lives behind an ersatz happy ending.

The Hedge orphans stood on the steps of Veblen Hall, weeping with anguish and frustration as Count Eggman rode away with the Quagmire triplets, and the sight of Mr. Silver Poe emerging from the award-winning door, with a doily in his hair and a look of panic in his eye, only made them weep harder.

"I'll call the police," Mr. Silver Poe said, "and they'll capture Count Eggman in no time at all," but the Hedges knew that this statement was as ersatz as Gunther's improper English. They knew that Eggman was far too clever to be captured by the police, and I'm sorry to say that by the time two detectives found the big black pickup truck, abandoned outside St. Carl's

Cathedral with the motor still running, Eggman had already transferred the Quagmires from the red herring to a shiny black instrument case, which he told the bus driver was a tuba he was bringing to his aunt. The three siblings watched Mr. Silver Poe scurry back into Veblen Hall to ask members of the in crowd where he could find a phone booth, and they knew that the banker was not going to be of any help even if beliving them is now a change.

"I think Mr. Silver Poe will be a great deal of help," Jerome Vector said, as he walked out of Veblen Hall and sat down on the steps to try to comfort the children. "He's going to call the police, and give them a description of Eggman."

"But Eggman is always in disguise," Tailssaid miserably, wiping her eyes. "You never know what he'll look like until you see him."

"Well, I'm going to make sure you never see him again," Jerome Vector promised. "Eudora may have left-and I'm not going to argue with her-but I'm still your guardian, and I'm going to take you far, far away from here, so far away that you'll forget all about Count Eggman and the Quagmires and everything else."

"Forget about Eggman?" Amy asked. "How can we forget about him? We'll never forget his treachery, no matter where we live."

"And we'll never forget the Quagmires, either," Tailssaid. "I don't want to forget about them. We have to figure out where he's taking our friends, and how to rescue them."

"Tercul!" Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "And we don't want to forget about everything else, either-like the underground hallway that led to our ruined mansion, and the real meaning of V.F.D.!" "My sister is right," Amy said. "We have to track down Eggman and learn all the secrets he's keeping from us."

"We're not going to track down Eggman," Jerome Vector said, shuddering at the thought. "We'll be lucky if he doesn't track us down. As your guardian, I cannot allow you to try to find such a dangerous man. Wouldn't you rather live safely with me?"

"Yes," Tails admitted, "but our friends are in grave danger. We must go and rescue them."

"Well, I don't want to argue," Jerome Vector said. "If you've made up your mind, then you've made up your mind. I'll tell Mr. Silver Poe to find you another

guardian."

"You mean you won't help us?" Amy asked.

Jerome Vector sighed, and kissed each Hedge on the forehead. "You children are very dear to me," he said, "but I don't have your courage. Your mother always said I wasn't brave enough, and I guess she was right.

Good luck, Hedges. I think you will need it."

The children watched in amazement as Jerome Vector walked away, not even looking back at the three orphans he was leaving behind. They found their eyes brimming with tears once more as they watched him disappear from sight. They would never see the Squalor penthouse again, or spend another night in their bedrooms, or spend even a moment in their oversized pinstripe suits. Though he was not as dastardly as Eudora or Count Eggman or the hook-handed man, Jerome Vector was still an ersatz guardian, because a real guardian is supposed to provide a home, with a place to sleep and something to wear, and all Jerome Vector had given them in the end was "Good luck." Jerome Vector reached the end of the block and turned left, and the Hedges were once again alone in the world.

Tails sighed, and stared down the street in the direction Eggman had escaped. "I hope my inventing skills don't fail me," he said, "because we're going to need more than good luck to rescue the Quagmire triplets." Amy sighed, and stared down the street in the direction of the ashy remains of their first home. "I hope my research skills don't fail me," he said, "because we're going to need more than good luck to solve the mystery of the hallway and the Hedge mansion."

Sonic sighed, and watched as a lone doily blew down the stairs. "Bite, run" she said, and she meant that she hoped her teeth or feet wouldn't fail her, because they'd need more than good luck to discover what V.F.D. really stood for.

The Hedges looked at one another with faint smiles. They were smiling because they didn't think Tails' inventing skills would fail, any more than Amy's research skills would fail or Sonic's teeth or speed would fail. But the children also knew that they wouldn't fail each other, as Jerome Vector had failed them and as Mr. Silver Poe was failing them now, as his cellhone is out of battery and taking your phone with you on a Thursday was out, Mr. Silver Poe had to use a phonebooth for the first time and was failing very hard. No matter how many misfortunes had befallen them and no matter

how many ersatz things they would encounter in the future, the Hedge orphans knew they could rely on each other for the rest of their lives, and this, at least, felt like the one thing in the world that was true.

A

To My Kind Editor,

I am sorry this paper is sopping wet, but I am writing this from the place where the Quagmire Triplets were hidden.

The next time you run out of milk, buy a new carton at Cash Register #19 of the Not-Very-Supermarket. When you arrive home, you will find my description of the Hedges' recent experiences in this dreadful town entitled THE VILE VILLAGE has been tucked into your grocery sack along with a burnt-out torch, the tip of a harpoon, and a chart of the migration paths of the V.F.D. crows. There is also a copy of the official portrait of

the Council of Elders, to help Mr. Helquist with his illustrations. Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Hedge orphans can be told to the general public.

With all due respect, Lemony Snicket


	8. Vile Village

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Seventh

The Vile Village

For Cream— When we were together I felt breathless. Now, you are

 **Lemony Snicket**

 _R_

One

 _No_ matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read. For instance, if you are walking in the mountains, and you don't read the sign that says "Beware of Cliff" because you are busy reading a joke book instead, you may suddenly find yourself walking on air rather than on a sturdy bed of rocks. If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled "How to Build a Chair" instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling. And if you insist on reading this book instead of something more cheerful, you will most certainly find yourself moaning in despair instead of wriggling in delight, so if you have any sense at all you will put this book down and pick up another one. I know of a book, for instance, called The Littlest Elf, which tells the story of a teensy-weensy little man who scurries around Fairyland having all sorts of adorable adventures, and you can see at once that you should probably read The Littlest Elf and wriggle over the lovely things that happened to this imaginary creature in a made-up place, instead of reading this book and moaning over the terrible things that happened to the three Hedge orphans in the village where I am now typing these very words. The misery, woe, and treachery contained in the pages of this book are so dreadful that it is important that you don't read any more of it than you already have. The Hedge orphans, at the time this story begins, were certainly wishing that they weren't reading the newspaper that was in front of their eyes. A newspaper, as I'm sure you know, is a collection of supposedly true stories written down by writers who either saw them happen or talked to people who did. These writers are called journalists, and like telephone operators, butchers, ballerinas, and people who clean up after horses, journalists can sometimes make mistakes. This was certainly the case with the front page of the morning edition of The Daily Punctilio, which the Hedge children were reading in the office of Mr. Silver Poe. "twins captured by count Redman," the headline read, and the three siblings looked at one another in amazement over the mistakes that The Daily Punctilio's journalists had made.

"'Manic and Sonia Quagmire,'" Tails read out loud, "'twin children who are the only known surviving members of the Quagmire family, have been kidnapped by the notorious Count Redman. Redman is wanted by the police for a variety of dreadful crimes, and is easily recognized by his one long eyebrow and the tattoo of an eye on his left ankle. Redman has also kidnapped Eudora Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor, for reasons unknown.' Ugh!" The word "Ugh!" was not in the newspaper, of course, but was something Tails uttered herself as a way of saying she was too disgusted to read any further. "If I invented something as sloppily as this newspaper writes its stories," she said, "it would fall apart immediately." Tails, who at fourteen was the eldest Hedge child, was an excellent inventor, and spent a great deal of time with her hair tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes as she thought of new mechanical devices.

"And if I read books as sloppily," Amy said, "I wouldn't remember one single fact." Amy, the middle Hedge, had read more books than just about anyone his own age, which was almost thirteen. At many crucial moments, his sisters had relied on him to remember a helpful fact from a book he had read years before.

"Krechin!" Sonic said. Sonic, the youngest Hedge, was a baby scarcely larger than a watermelon. Like many infants, Sonic often said words that were difficult to understand, like "Krechin!" which meant something along the lines of "And if I used my four big teeth to bite something as sloppily, I wouldn't even leave one toothmark!"

Tails moved the paper closer to one of the reading lamps Mr. Silver Poe had in his office, and began to count the errors that had appeared in the few sentences she had read. "For one thing," she said, "the Quagmires aren't twins. They're triplets. The fact that their brother perished in the fire that killed their parents doesn't change their birth identity."

"Of course it doesn't," Amy agreed. "And they were kidnapped by Count Eggman, not Redman. It's difficult enough that Eggman is always in disguise, but now the newspaper has disguised his name, too."

"Eudora!" Sonic added, and her siblings nodded. The youngest Hedge was talking about the part of the article that mentioned Eudora Squalor. Eudora and her husband, Jerome, had recently been the Hedges' guardians, and the children had seen with their own eyes that Eudora had not been kidnapped by Count Eggman. Eudora had secretly helped Eggman with his evil scheme, and had escaped with him at the last minute.

"And 'for reasons unknown' is the biggest mistake of all," Tails said glumly. "The reasons aren't unknown. We know them. We know the reasons Eudora, Count Eggman, and all of Eggman's associates have done so many terrible things. It's because they're terrible people." Tails put down The Daily Punctilio, looked around Mr. Silver Poe's office, and joined her siblings in a sad, deep sigh. The Hedge orphans were sighing not only for the things they had read, but for the things they hadn't read. The article had not mentioned that both the Quagmires and the Hedges had lost their parents in terrible fires, and that both sets of parents had left enormous fortunes behind, and that Count Eggman had cooked up all of his evil plans just to get a hold of these fortunes for himself. The newspaper had failed to note that the Quagmire triplets had been kidnapped while trying to help the Hedges escape from Count Eggman's clutches, and that the Hedges had almost managed to rescue the Quagmires, only to find them snatched away once more. The journalists who wrote the story had not included the fact that Manic Quagmire, who was a journalist himself, and Sonia Quagmire, who was a poet, each kept a notebook with them wherever they went, and that in their notebooks they had written down a terrible secret they had discovered about Count Eggman, but that all the Hedge orphans knew of this secret were the initials V.F.D., and that Tails, Amy, and Sonic were always thinking of these three letters and what ghastly thing they could stand for. But most of all, the Hedge orphans had read no word about the fact that the Quagmire triplets were good friends of theirs, and that the three siblings were very worried about the Quagmires, and that every night when they tried to go to sleep, their heads were filled with terrible images of what could be happening to their friends, who were practically the only happy thing in the Hedges' lives since they received the news of the fire that killed their parents and began the series of unfortunate events that seemed to follow them wherever they went. The article in The Daily Punctilio probably did not mention these details because the journalist who wrote the story did not know about them, or did not think they were important, but the Hedges knew about them, and the three children sat together for a few moments and thought quietly about these very, very important details.

A fit of coughing, coming from the doorway of the office, brought them out of their thoughts, and the Hedges turned to see Mr. Silver Poe coughing into a white handkerchief. Mr. Silver Poe was a banker who had been placed in charge of the orphans' care after the fire, and I'm sorry to say that he was extremely prone to error, a phrase which here means "always had a cough, and had placed the three Hedge children in an assortment of dangerous positions." The first guardian Mr. Silver Poe found for the youngsters was Count Eggman himself, and the most recent guardian he had found for them was Eudora Squalor, and in between he had placed the

children in a variety of circumstances that turned out to be just as unpleasant. This morning they were supposed to learn about their new home, but so far all Mr. Silver Poe had done was have several coughing fits and leave them alone with a poorly written newspaper.

"Good morning, children," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting, but ever since I was promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs I've been very, very busy. Besides, finding you a new home has been something of a chore." He walked over to his desk, which was covered in piles of papers, and sat down in a large chair. "I've put calls in to a variety of distant relatives, but they've heard all about the terrible things that tend to happen wherever you go. Understandably, they're too skittish about Count Eggman to agree to take care of you. 'Skittish' means 'nervous,' by the way. There's one more — "

One of the three telephones on Mr. Silver Poe's desk interrupted him with a loud, ugly ring. "Excuse me," the banker said to the children, and began to speak into the receiver. "Poe here. O.K. O.K. O.K. I thought so. O.K. O.K. Thank you, Mr. Fagin." Mr. Silver Poe hung up the phone and made a mark on one of the papers on his desk. "That was a nineteenth cousin of yours," Mr. Silver Poe said, "and a last hope of mine. I thought I could persuade him to take you in, just for a couple of months, but he refused. I can't say I blame him. I'm concerned that your reputation as troublemakers is even ruining the reputation of my bank."

"But we're not troublemakers," Amy said. "Count Eggman is the troublemaker."

Mr. Silver Poe took the newspaper from the children and looked at it carefully. "Well, I'm sure the story in The Daily Punctilio will help the authorities finally capture Eggman, and then your relatives will be less skittish."

"But the story is full of mistakes," Tails said. "The authorities won't even know his real name. The newspaper calls him Redman."

"The story was a disappointment to me, too," Mr. Silver Poe said. "The journalist said that the paper would put a photograph of me next to the article, with a caption about my promotion. I had my hair cut for it especially. It would have made my wife and sons very proud to see my name in the papers, so I understand why you're disappointed that the article is about the Quagmire twins, instead of being about you. And…"

"We don't care about having our names in the papers," Amy said, "and besides, the Quagmires are triplets, not twins."

"The death of their brother changes their birth identity," Mr. Silver Poe explained sternly, "but I don't have time to talk about this. We need to find — "

Another one of his phones rang, and Mr. Silver Poe excused himself again. "Poe here," he said into the receiver. "No. No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't care. Good-bye." He hung up the phone and coughed into his white handkerchief before wiping his mouth and turning once more to the children. "Well, that phone call solved all of your problems," he said simply.

The Hedges looked at one another. Had Count Eggman been arrested? Had the Quagmires been saved? Had someone invented a way to go back in time and rescue their parents from

the terrible fire? How could all of their problems have been solved with one phone call to a banker?

"Plinn?" Sonic asked.

Mr. Silver Poe smiled. "Have you ever heard the aphorism," he said, "'It takes a village to raise a child'?"

The children looked at one another again, a little less hopefully this time. The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen. An aphorism is merely a small group of words arranged in a certain order because they sound good that way, but oftentimes people tend to say them as if they were saying something very mysterious and wise.

"I know it probably sounds mysterious to you," Mr. Silver Poe continued, "but the aphorism is actually very wise.'It takes a village to raise a child' means that the responsibility for taking care of youngsters belongs to everyone in the community."

"I think I read something about this aphorism in a book about the Mbuti pygmies," Amy said. "Are you sending us to live in Africa ?"

"Don't be silly," Mr. Silver Poe said, as if the millions of people who lived in Africa were all ridiculous. "That was the city government on the telephone. A number of villages just outside the city have signed up for a new guardian program based on the aphorism 'It takes a village to raise a child.' Orphans are sent to these villages, and everyone who lives there raises them together. Normally, I approve of more traditional family structures, but this is really quite convenient, and your parents' will instructs that you be raised in the most convenient way possible."

"Do you mean that the entire town would be in charge of us?" Tails asked. "That's a lot of people."

"Well, I imagine they would take turns," Mr. Silver Poe said, stroking his chin. "It's not as if you would be tucked into bed by three thousand people at once."

"Snoita!" Sonic shrieked. He meant something like "I prefer to be tucked into bed by my siblings, not by strangers!" but Mr. Silver Poe was busy looking through his papers on his desk and didn't answer her.

"Apparently I was mailed a brochure about this program several weeks ago," he said, "but I guess it got lost somewhere on my desk. Oh, here it is. Take a look for yourselves."

Mr. Silver Poe reached across his desk to hand them a colorful brochure, and the Hedge orphans took a look for themselves. On the front was the aphorism 'It takes a village to raise a child' written in flowery letters, and inside the brochure were photographs of children with such huge smiles that the Hedges' mouths ached just to look at them. A few paragraphs explained that 99 percent of the orphans participating in this program were overjoyed to have whole villages taking care of them, and that all the towns listed on the back page were eager to serve as guardians for any interested children who had lost their parents. The three Hedges looked at the grinning photographs and read the flowery aphorism and felt a little

flutter in their stomachs. They felt more than a little nervous about having a whole town for a guardian. It was strange enough when they were in the care of various relatives. How strange would it feel if hundreds of people were trying to act as substitute Hedges?

"Do you think we would be safe from Count Eggman," Tails asked hesitantly, "if we lived with an entire village?"

"I should think so," Mr. Silver Poe said, and coughed into his handkerchief. "With a whole village looking after you, you'll probably be the safest you've ever been. Plus, thanks to the story in The Daily Punctilio, I'm sure Redman will be captured in no time."

"Eggman," Amy corrected.

"Yes, yes," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I meant to say Eggman. Now, what villages are listed in the brochure? You children can choose your new hometown, if you like."

Amy turned the brochure over and read from the list of towns. "Paltryville," she said. "That's where the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was. We had a terrible time there."

"Calten!" Sonic cried, which meant something like "I wouldn't return there for all the tea in China !"

"The next village on the list is Tedia," Amy said. "That name is familiar to me."

"That's near where Uncle Monty lived," Tails said. "Let's not live there — it'll make us miss Uncle Monty even more than we already do."

Amy nodded in agreement. "Besides," he said, "the town is near Lousy Lane , so it probably smells like horseradish. Here's a village I've never heard of — Ophelia."

"No, no," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I won't have you living in the same town as the Ophelia Bank. It's one of my least favorite banks, and I don't want to have to walk by it when I visit you."

"Zounce!" Sonic said, which meant "That's ridiculous!" but Amy nudged him with her elbow and pointed to the next village listed on the brochure, and Sonic quickly changed his tune, a phrase which here means "immediately said 'Gounce!' instead, which meant something along the lines of 'Let's live there!'"

"Gounce indeed," Amy agreed, and showed Tails what she and Sonic were talking about. Tails gasped, and the three siblings looked at one another and felt a little flutter in their stomachs again. But this was less of a nervous flutter and more of a hopeful one — a hope that maybe Mr. Silver Poe's last phone call really had solved all their problems, and that maybe what they read right here in the brochure would turn out to be more important than what they didn't read in the newspaper. For at the bottom of the list of villages, below Paltryville and Tedia and Ophelia, was the most important thing they had read all morning. Printed in the flowery script, on the back page of the brochure Mr. Silver Poe had given them, were the letters V.F.D.

Chapter 2

 _When_ you are traveling by bus, it is always difficult to decide whether you should sit in a seat by the window, a seat on the aisle, or a seat in the middle. If you take an aisle seat, you have the advantage of being able to stretch your legs whenever you like, but you have the disadvantage of people walking by you, and they can accidentally step on your toes or spill something on your clothing. If you take a window seat, you have the advantage of getting a clear view of the scenery, but you have the disadvantage of watching insects die as they hit the glass. If you take a middle seat, you have neither of these advantages, and you have the added disadvantage of people leaning all over you when they fall asleep. You can see at once why you should always arrange to hire a limousine or rent a mule rather than take the bus to your destination.

The Hedge orphans, however, did not have the money to hire a limousine, and it would have taken them several weeks to reach V.F.D. by mule, so they were traveling to their new home by bus. The children had thought that it might take a lot of effort to convince Mr. Silver Poe to choose V.F.D. as their new village guardian, but right when they saw the three initials on the brochure, one of Mr. Silver Poe's telephones rang, and by the time he was off the phone he was too busy to argue. All he had time to do was make arrangements with the city government and take them to the bus station. As he saw them off — a phrase which here means "put the Hedges on a bus, rather than doing the polite thing and taking them to their new home personally" — he instructed them to report to the Town Hall of V.F.D., and made them promise not to do anything that would ruin his bank's reputation, and if Count Eggman does come in disguise he will believe them. Before they knew it, Tails was sitting in an aisle seat, brushing dirt off his coat, rubbing his sore toes, and feeling a small burn on his trousers where a clumsy fox had spilled coffee, and Amy was sitting in a window seat gazing at the scenery through a layer of dead bugs. Sonic sat between them, gnawing on the armrest.

"No lean!" he said sternly, and his sister smiled.

"Don't worry, Sonic," she said. "We'll make sure not to lean on you if we fall asleep. We don't have much time for napping, anyway — we should be at V.F.D. any minute now."

"What do you think it could stand for?" Tails asked. "Neither the brochure nor the map at the bus station showed anything more than the three initials."

"I don't know," Amy said. "Do you think we should have told Mr. Silver Poe about the V.F.D. secret? Maybe he could have helped us."

"I doubt it," Tails said. "He hasn't been very helpful before. I wish the Quagmires were here. I bet they could help us."

"I wish the Quagmires were here even if they couldn't help us," Amy said, and her brothers nodded in agreement. No Hedge had to say anything more about how worried they were about the triplets, and they sat in silence for the rest of the ride, hoping that their arrival at

V.F.D. would bring them closer to saving their friends.

"V.F.D.!" the bus driver finally called out. "Next stop V.F.D.! If you look out the window, you can see the town coming up, folks!"

"What does it look like?" Tails asked Amy.

Amy peered out the window past the layer of dead bugs. "Flat," she said.

Tails and Sonic leaned over to look and saw that their sister had spoken the truth.

The countryside looked as if someone had drawn the line of the horizon — the word "horizon" here means "the boundary where the sky ends and the world begins" — and then forgot to draw in anything else. The land stretched out as far as the eye could see, but there was nothing for the eye to look at but flat, dry land and the occasional sheet of newspaper stirred up by the passing of the bus.

"I don't see any town at all," Amy said. "Do you suppose it's underground?" "Novedri!" Sonic said, which meant "Living underground would be no fun at all!"

"Maybe that's the town over there," Tails said, squinting to try and see as far as he could. "You see? Way out by the horizon line, there's a hazy black blur. It looks like smoke, but maybe it's just some buildings seen from far away."

"I can't see it," Amy said. "That smushed moth is blocking it, I think. But a hazy blur could just be fata morgana."

"Fata?" Sonic asked.

"Fata morgana is when your eyes play tricks on you, particularly in hot weather," Amy explained. "It's caused by the distortion of light through alternate layers of hot and cool air. It's also called a mirage, but I like the name 'fata morgana' better."

"Me too," Tails agreed, "but let's hope it's not a mirage or fata morgana. Let's hope it's V.F.D."

"V.F.D.!" the bus driver called, as the bus came to a stop. "V.F.D.! Everyone off for V.F.D.!"

The Hedges stood up, gathered their belongings, and walked down the aisle, but when they reached the open door of the bus they stopped and stared doubtfully out at the flat and empty landscape.

"Is this really the stop for V.F.D.?" Tails asked the driver. "I thought V.F.D. was a town."

"It is," the driver replied. "Just walk toward that hazy black blur out there on the horizon. I know it looks like — well, I can't remember the phrase for when your eyes play tricks on you

— but it's really the town."

"Couldn't you take us a little closer?" Tails asked shyly. "We have a baby with us, and it looks like a long way to walk."

"I wish I could help you," the bus driver said kindly, looking down at Sonic, "but the Council of Elders has very strict rules. I have to let off all passengers for V.F.D. right here; otherwise I could be severely punished."

"Who are the Council of Elders?" Amy asked.

"Hey!" a voice called from the back of the bus. "Tell those kids to hurry up and get off the bus! The open door is letting bugs in!"

"Off you go, kids," the bus driver said, and the Hedges stepped out of the bus onto the flat land of V.F.D. The doors shut, and with a little wave the bus driver drove off and left the children alone on the empty landscape. The siblings watched the bus get smaller and smaller as it drove away, and then turned toward the hazy black blur of their new home.

"Well, now I can see it," Amy said, squinting behind her glasses, "but I can't believe it.

It's going to take the rest of the afternoon to walk all that way."

"Then we'd better get started," Tails said, hoisting Sonic up on top of his suitcase. "This piece of luggage has wheels," he said to his brother, "so you can sit on top of it and I can pull you along."

"Sanks!" Sonic said, which meant "That's very considerate of you!" and the Hedges began their long walk toward the hazy black blur on the horizon. After even the first few steps, the disadvantages of the bus ride seemed like small potatoes. "Small potatoes" is a phrase which has nothing to do with root vegetables that happen to be tiny in size. Instead, it refers to the change in one's feelings for something when it is compared with something else. If you were walking in the rain, for instance, you might be worried about getting wet, but if you turned the corner and saw a pack of vicious dogs, getting wet would suddenly become small potatoes next to getting chased down an alley and barked at, or possibly eaten. As the Hedges began their long journey toward V.F.D., dead bugs, stepped-on toes, and the possibility of someone leaning on them became small potatoes next to the far more unpleasant things they were encountering. Without anything else on the flat land to blow up against, the wind concentrated its efforts on Tails, a phrase which here means that before long his fur was so wildly tangled that it looked like it had never seen a comb. Because Amy was standing behind Tails, the wind didn't blow on her much, but without anything else in the empty landscape to cling to, the dust on the ground concentrated its efforts on the middle Hedge, and soon she was dusty from head to toe, as if it had been years since she'd had a shower. Perched on top of Tails' luggage, Sonic was out of the way of the dust, but without anything else in the desolate terrain to shine on, the sun concentrated its efforts on him, which meant that he was soon as sunburned as a baby who had spent six months at the seashore, instead of a few hours on top of a suitcase.

But even as they approached the town, V.F.D. still looked as hazy as it did from far away. As the children drew closer and closer to their new home, they could see a number of buildings of different heights and widths, separated by streets both narrow and wide, and the Hedges could even see the tall skinny shapes of lampposts and flagpoles stretching out toward the sky. But everything they saw — from the tip of the highest building to the curve of the narrowest street — was pitch black, and seemed to be shaking slightly, as if the entire town were painted on a piece of cloth that was trembling in the wind. The buildings were trembling, and the lampposts were trembling, and even the very streets were shaking ever so slightly, and it was like no town the three Hedges had ever seen. It was a mystery, but unlike most mysteries, once the children reached the outskirts of V.F.D. and learned what was causing the trembling effect, they did not feel any better to have the mystery solved.

The town was covered in crows. Nearly every inch of nearly every object had a large black bird roosting on it and casting a suspicious eye on the children as they stood at the very edge of the village. There were crows sitting on the roofs of all the buildings, perching on the windowsills, and squatting on the steps and on the sidewalks. Crows were covering all of the trees, from the very top branches to the roots poking out of the crow-covered ground, and were gathered in large groups on the streets for crow conversations. Crows were covering the lampposts and flagpoles, and there were crows lying down in the gutters and resting between fence posts. There were even six crows crowded together on the sign that read "Town Hall," with an arrow leading down a crow-covered street. The crows weren't squawking or cawing, which is what crows often do, or playing the trumpet, which crows practically never do, but the town was far from silent. The air was filled with the sounds the crows made as they moved around. Sometimes one crow would fly from one perch to another, as if it had suddenly become bored roosting on the mailbox and thought it might be more fun to perch on the doorknob of a building. Occasionally, several crows would flutter their wings, as if they were stiff from sitting together on a bench and wanted to stretch a little bit. And almost constantly, the crows would shift in their places, trying to make themselves as comfortable as they could in such cramped quarters. All this motion explained why the town had looked so shivery in the distance, but it certainly didn't make the Hedges feel any better, and they stood together in silence for quite some time, trying to find the courage to walk among all the fluttering black birds.

"I've read three books on crows," Amy said. "They're perfectly harmless."

"Yes, I know," Tails said. "It's unusual to see so many crows in one place, but they're nothing to worry about. It's small potatoes."

"Zimuster," Sonic agreed, but the three children still did not take a step closer to the crow-covered town. Despite what they had said to one another — that the crows were harmless birds, that they had nothing to worry about, and "Zimuster," which meant something along the lines of "It would be silly to be afraid of a bunch of birds" — the Hedges felt they were encountering some very large potatoes indeed.

If I had been one of the Hedges myself, I would have stood at the edge of town for the rest of my life, whimpering with fear, rather than take even one step into the crow covered streets, but it only took the Hedges a few minutes to work up the courage to walk through all of the muttering, scuffling birds to Town Hall.

"This isn't as difficult as I thought it might be," Tails said, in a quiet voice so as not to disturb the crows closest to her. "It's not exactly small potatoes, but there's enough space between the groups of crows to step."

"That's true," Amy said, her eyes on the sidewalk to avoid stepping on any crow tails. "And they tend to move aside, just a little bit, as we walk by."

"Racah," Sonic said, crawling as carefully as he could. He meant something along the lines of "It's almost like walking through a quiet, but polite, crowd of very short people," and her siblings smiled in agreement. Before too long, they had walked the entire block of the crow-lined street, and there at the far corner was a tall, impressive building that appeared to be made of white marble — at least, as far as the Hedges could tell, because it was as covered with crows as the rest of the neighborhood. Even the sign reading "Town Hall" looked like it read "wn Ha," because three enormous crows were perched on it, gazing at the Hedges with their tiny beady eyes. Tails raised his hand as if to knock on the door, but then paused.

"What's the matter?" Amy said.

"Nothing," Tails replied, but his hand still hung in the air. "I guess I'm just a little skittish. After all, this is the Town Hall of V.F.D. For all we know, behind this door may be the secret we've been looking for since the Quagmires were first kidnapped."

"Maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up," Amy said. "Remember, when we lived with the Squalors, we thought we had solved the V.F.D. mystery, but we were wrong. We could be wrong this time, too."

"But we could be right," Tails said, "and if we're right, we should be prepared for whatever terrible thing is behind this door."

"Unless we're wrong," Amy pointed out. "Then we have nothing to be prepared for." "Gaksoo!" Sonic said. he meant something along the lines of "There's no point in

arguing, because we'll never know whether we're right or wrong until we knock on the door,"

and before his siblings could answer him he crawled around Amy's legs and took the plunge, a phrase which here means "knocked firmly on the door with his tiny knuckles."

"Come in!" called a very grand voice, and the Hedges opened the door and found themselves in a large room with a very high ceiling, a very shiny floor, and a very long bench, with very detailed portraits of crows hanging on the walls. In front of the bench was a small platform where a woman in a motorcycle helmet was standing, and behind the platform were perhaps one hundred folding chairs, most of which had a person sitting on them who was staring at the Hedge orphans. But the Hedge orphans were not staring back. The three children were staring so hard at the people sitting on the bench that they scarcely glanced at the folding chairs at all.

On the bench, sitting stiffly side by side, were twenty-five people who had two things in common. The first thing was that they were all quite old — the youngest person on the bench, a woman sitting on the far end, looked about seventy nine years of age, and everyone else looked quite a bit older. But the second thing they had in common was far more interesting.

At first glance it looked like a few crows had flown in from the streets and roosted on the bench-sitters' heads, but as the Hedges looked more closely, they saw that the crows did not blink their eyes, or flutter their wings or move at all in any way, and the children realized that they were nothing more than black hats, made in such a way as to resemble actual crows. It was such a strange kind of hat to be wearing that the children found themselves staring for quite a few minutes without noticing anything else.

"Are you the Hedge orphans?" asked one of the old men who was sitting on the bench, in a gravelly voice. As he talked, his crow head flapped slightly, which only made it look more ridiculous. "We've been expecting you, although I wasn't told you would look so terrible. You three are the most windswept, dusty, and sunburned children I have ever seen. Are you sure you're the children we've been waiting for?"

"Yes," Tails replied. "I'm Tails Hedge, and this is my sister, Amy, and my brother, Sonic, and the reason why we — "

"Shush," one of the other old men said. "We're not discussing you right now. Rule #492 clearly states that the Council of Elders will only discuss things that are on the platform. Right now we are discussing our new Chief of Police. Are there any questions from the townspeople regarding Officer Luciana?"

"Yes, I have a question," called out a stoat in hideous dark blue clothes. "I want to know what happened to our previous Chief of Police. I liked that guy."

The woman on the platform held up a white-gloved hand, and the Hedges turned to look at her for the first time. Officer Luciana was a very tall hedgehog wearing big black boots, a blue coat with a shiny badge, and a motorcycle helmet with the visor pulled down to cover her eyes. The Hedges could see her mouth, below the edge of the visor, covered in bright red lipstick. "The previous Chief of Police has a sore throat," she said, turning her helmet to the man who had asked the question. "He accidentally swallowed a box of thumbtacks. But let's not waste time talking about him. I am your new Chief of Police, and I will make sure that any rulebreakers in town are punished properly. I can't see how there's anything more to discuss."

"I quite agree with you," said the first Elder who had spoken, as the people in folding chairs nodded. "The Council of Elders hereby ends the discussion of Officer Luciana. Jet, please bring the orphans to the platform for discussion."

A tall skinny green hawk in rumpled overalls stood up from one of the folding chairs as the Chief of Police stepped off the platform with a lipsticked smile on. His eyes on the floor, the man walked over to the Hedges and pointed first at the Council of Elders sitting on the bench and then at the empty platform. Although they would have preferred a more polite method of communication, the children understood at once, and Tails and Amy stepped up onto the platform and then lifted Sonic up to join them.

One of the women in the Council of Elders spoke up. "We are now discussing the guardianship of the Hedge orphans. Under the new government program, the entire town of V.F.D. will act as guardian over these three children because it takes a village to raise a child. Are there any questions?"

"Are these the same Hedges," came a voice from the back of the room, "who are involved in the kidnapping of the Quagmire twins by Count Redman?"

The Hedges turned around to see a yak dressed in a bright pink bathrobe and holding up a copy of The Daily Punctilio. "It says here in the newspaper that an evil count is coming after those children. I don't want someone like that in our town!"

"We've taken care of that matter, Mrs. Morrow," replied another member of the Council soothingly. "We'll explain in a moment. Now, when children have a guardian, the guardian makes them do chores, so it follows that you Hedges will do all the chores for the entire village. Beginning tomorrow, you three children will be responsible for anything that anyone asks you to do."

The children looked at each other in disbelief. "Begging your pardon," Amy said timidly, "but there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and there appear to be several hundred townspeople. How will we find the time to do everyone's chores?"

"Hush!" several members of the Council said in unison, and then the youngest-looking woman spoke up. "Rule #920 clearly states that no one may talk while on the platform unless you are a police officer. You're orphans, not police officers, so shut up. Now, due to the

V.F.D. crows, you will have to arrange your chore schedule as follows: In the morning, the crows roost uptown, so that's when you will do all the downtown chores, so the crows don't get in your way. In the afternoon, as you can see, the crows roost downtown, so you will do the uptown chores then. Please pay particular attention to our new fountain, which was just installed this morning. It's very beautiful, and needs to be kept as clean as possible. At night, the crows roost in Nevermore Tree, which is on the outskirts of town, so there's no problem there. Are there any questions?"

"I have a question," said an old lion. He stood up from his folding chair and pointed at the Hedges. "Where are they going to live? It may take a village to raise a child, but that doesn't mean that our homes have to be disturbed by noisy children, does it?"

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Morrow. "I'm all for the orphans doing our chores, but I don't want them cluttering up my house."

Several other townspeople spoke up. "Hear, hear!" they said, using an expression which here means "I don't want Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge to live with me, either!"

One of the oldest-looking Elders raised both his hands up in the air. "Please," he said. "There is no reason for all this fuss. The children will live with Jet, our handyman. He will feed them, clothe them, and make sure they do all the chores, and he is responsible for teaching them all of the rules of V.F.D., so they won't do any more terrible things, such as talking while on the platform."

"Thank goodness for that," muttered the old lion.

"Now, Hedges," said yet another member of the Council. She was sitting so far from the platform that she had to crane her head to look at the children, and her hat looked like it would fall off her head. "Before Jet takes you to his house, I'm sure you have some

concerns of your own. It's too bad you're not allowed to speak right now, otherwise you could tell us what they were. But Mr. Silver Poe sent us some materials regarding this Count Eggman person."

"Redman," corrected Mrs. Morrow, pointing to the headline in the newspaper.

"Silence!" the Elder said. "Now, Hedges, I'm sure you are very concerned about this Eggman fellow, but as your guardian, the town will protect you. That is why we have recently made up a new rule, Rule #19,833. It clearly states that no villains are allowed within the city limits."

"Hear, hear!" the townspeople cried, and the Council of Elders nodded in appreciation, bobbing their crow-shaped hats.

"Now, if there are no more questions," an Elder concluded, "Jet, please take the Hedges off the platform and take them to your house."

Still keeping his eyes on the floor, the green hawk in overalls strode silently to the platform and led them out of the room. The children hurried to catch up with the handyman, who had not said one word all this time. Was he unhappy to be taking care of three children? Was he angry at the Council of Elders? Was he unable to speak at all? It reminded the Hedges of one of Count Eggman's associates, the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman and who never seemed to speak. The children kept a few steps behind Jet as he walked out of the building, almost afraid to get any closer to a man who was so strange and silent.

When Jet opened the door of Town Hall and led the children back out onto the crow- covered sidewalk, he let out a big sigh — the first sound the children had heard from him. Then he looked down at each Hedge and gave them a gentle smile. "I'm never truly relaxed," he said to them in a pleasant voice, "until I have left Town Hall. The Council of Elders makes me feel very skittish. All those strict rules! It makes me so skittish that I never speak during one of their council meetings. But I always feel much better the moment I walk out of the building. Now, it looks like we're going to be spending quite a bit of time together, so let's get a few things straight. Number one, call me Jet. Number two, I hope you like Indian food, because that's my specialty. And number three, I want you to see something marvelous, and we're just in time. The sun is starting to set."

It was true. The Hedges hadn't noticed, when they stepped out of Town Hall, that the afternoon light had slipped away and that the sun was now just beginning to dip below the horizon. "It's lovely," Tails said politely, although he had never understood all the fuss about standing around admiring sunsets.

"Shh," Jet said. "Who cares about the sunset? Just be quiet for a minute, and watch the crows. It should happen any second now."

"What should happen?" Amy said.

"Shh," Jet said again, and then it began to happen. The Council of Elders had already told the Hedges about the roosting habits of the crows, but the three children hadn't really given the matter a second thought, a phrase which here means "considered, even for a second, what it would look like when thousands of crows would fly together to a new location." One of the largest crows, sitting on top of the mailbox, was the first to fly up in the air, and with a

rustle of wings he — or she; it was hard to tell from so far away — began to fly in a large circle over the children's heads. Then a crow from one of Town Hall's windowsills flew up to join the first crow, and then one from a nearby bush, and then three from the street, and then hundreds of crows began to rise up at once and circle in the air, and it was as if an enormous shadow was being lifted from the town. The Hedges could finally see what all the streets looked like, and they could gaze at each detail of the buildings as more and more crows left their afternoon roosts. But the children scarcely looked at the town. Instead they looked straight up, at the mysterious and beautiful sight of all those birds making a huge circle in the sky.

"Isn't it marvelous?" Jet cried. His long skinny arms were outstretched, and he had to raise his voice over the sound of all the fluttering wings. "Isn't it marvelous?"

Tails, Amy, and Sonic nodded in agreement, and stared at the thousands of crows circling and circling above them like a mass of fluttering smoke or like black, fresh ink — such as the ink I am using now, to write down these events — that somehow had found its way to the heavens. The sound of the wings sounded like a million pages being flipped, and the wind from all that fluttering blew in their grinning faces. For a moment, with all that air rushing toward them, the Hedge orphans felt as if they too could fly up into the air, away from Count Eggman and all their troubles, and join the circle of crows in the evening sky.

"Wasn't that marvelous?" Jet said as the crows stopped circulating and began to fly like an enormous black cloud, over the buildings and away from the Hedge orphans. "wasn't that absolutely superlative? That means the same thing as 'marvelous' by the way."

"it certainly was" Amy agreed, not adding that she knew what 'superlative' ment when he was nine.

"I see that every evening" Jet said. "it always impresses me. It also makes me hungry, too. What shall we eat this evening? How about some vegetarian curry?

That I learned from my second-grade teacher. How does that sound?"

"That sounds delicious," Tails said.

"Oh, good," Jet said. "I despise picky eaters, and meat eaters, but that's due to rule #394, nobody can eat meat. Well, it's a pretty long walk to my house, so let's talk as we go. Here, I'll carry your suitcases and you two can carry your sister. I know you had to walk from the bus stop, so she's had more than enough exercise for a baby."

Jet grabbed the Hedges' bags and led the way down the street, which was now empty except for a few stray crow feathers. High above their heads, the crows were taking a sharp left-hand turn, and Jet raised Amy's suitcase to point at them. "I don't know if you're familiar with the expression 'as the crow flies,'" Jet said, "but it means 'the most direct route.' If something is a mile away as the crow flies, that means it's the shortest way to get there. It usually has nothing to do with actual crows, but in this case it does. We're about a mile away from my home as the crow flies — as all those crows fly, as a matter of fact. At night, they roost in Nevermore Tree, which is in my backyard. But it takes us longer to get there, of course, because we have to walk through V.F.D. instead of flying up in the air."

"Jet," Tails said timidly, "we were wondering exactly what V.F.D. stands for."

"Oh yes," Amy said. "Please tell us."

"Of course I'll tell you," Jet said, "but I don't know why you're so excited about it. It's just more nonsense from the Council of Elders."

The Hedges looked at one another uncertainly. "What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"Well, about three hundred and six years ago," Jet said, "a group of explorers

discovered the murder of crows that we just saw."

"Sturo?" Sonic asked.

"We didn't see any crows get killed," Tails said.

"'Murder' is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists. Anyway, the explorers were impressed with their patterns of migration — you know, they always fly uptown in the morning, downtown in the afternoon and over to Nevermore Tree in the evening. It's a very unusual pattern, and the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D."

"But what does V.F.D. stand for?" Tails asked.

"The Village of Fowl Devotees," Jet said. "'Devotees' is a word for people who are devoted to something, and 'fowl' — "

" — means 'bird,'" Amy finished. "That's the secret of V.F.D.? Village of Fowl Devotees?"

"What do you mean, secret?" Jet asked. "It's not a secret. Everyone knows what those letters mean."

The Hedges sighed with confusion and dismay, which is not a pleasant combination. "What my sister means," Tails explained, "is that we chose V.F.D. to become our new guardian because we'd been told of a terrible secret — a secret with the initials V.F.D."

"Who told you about this secret?" Jet asked.

"Some very dear friends of ours," Tails replied. "Manic and Sonia Quagmire. They discovered something about Count Eggman, but before they could tell us anything more — "

"Hold on a minute," Jet said. "Who's Count Eggman? Mrs. Morrow was talking about Count Redman. Is Eggman his brother?"

"No," Amy said, shuddering at the very thought of Eggman having a brother. "I'm afraid The Daily Punctilio got many of the facts wrong."

"Well, why don't we get them right," Jet said, turning a corner. "Suppose you tell me exactly what happened."

"It's sort of a long story," Tails said.

"Well," Jet said, with a slight smile, "we have sort of a long walk. Why don't you begin at the beginning?"

The Hedges looked up at Jet, sighed, and began at the beginning, which seemed such a long way off that they were surprised they could remember it so clearly. Tails told Jet about the dreadful day at the beach when he and his siblings learned from Mr. Silver Poe that their parents had been killed in the fire that had destroyed their home, and Amy told Jet about the days they spent in Count Eggman's care. Sonic — with some help from Amy and Tails, who translated for him — told him about poor Uncle Knuckles, and about the terrible things that had happened to Aunt Sticks. Tails told Jet about working at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Amy told him about enrolling at Prufrock Preparatory School , and Sonic related the dismal time they had living with Jerome Vector and Eudora Squalor at 667 Dark Avenue . Tails told Jet all about Count Eggman's various disguises, and about each and every one of his nefarious associates, including the hook-handed fox, the two powder-faced women, the bald mongoose with the long nose, and the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, of whom the Hedges had been reminded when Jet had been so silent. Amy told Jet all about the Quagmire triplets, and about the mysterious underground passageway that had led back to their home, and about the shadow of misfortune that had seemed to hang over them nearly every moment since that day at the beach. And as the Hedges told Jet their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Jet was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sonic concluded the whole long story, the Hedges felt as if they were carrying much less.

"Kyun," Sonic concluded, which Tails was quick to translate as "And that's why we chose this town, in the hopes of finding the secret of V.F.D., rescuing the Quagmire triplets, and defeating Count Eggman once and for all."

Jet sighed. "You've certainly been through an ordeal," he said, using a word which here means "a heap of trouble, most of which was Count Eggman's fault." He stopped for a second and looked at each Hedge. "You've been very brave, all three of you, and I'll do my best to make sure you have a proper home with me. But I must tell you that I think you've hit a dead end."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"Well, I hate to add some bad news to the terrible story you just told me," Jet said, "but I think the initials that the Quagmires told you about and the initials of this town are just a coincidence. As I said, this village has been called V.F.D. for more than three hundred years. Scarcely anything has changed since then. The crows have always roosted in the same places. The meetings of the Council of Elders have always been at the same time every day. My father was the handyman before me, and his father was the handyman before him, and so on and so on. The only new things in this town are you three children and the new Fowl Fountain uptown, which we'll be cleaning tomorrow. I don't see how this village could have anything to do with the secret the Quagmires discovered."

The Hedge children looked at one another in frustration. "Pojik?" Sonic asked in exasperation. He meant something along the lines of "Do you mean we've come here for nothing?" but Tails translated it somewhat differently.

"What he means," Tails said, "is that it's very frustrating to find that we're in the wrong place."

"We're very concerned for our friends," Amy added, "and we don't want to give up on finding them."

"Give up?" Jet said. "Who said anything about giving up? Just because the name of this town isn't helpful, that doesn't mean you're in the wrong place. We obviously have a great many chores to do, but in our spare time we can try to find out the whereabouts of Manic and Sonia. I'm a handyman, not a detective, but I'll try to help you the best I can. We'll have to be very careful, though. The Council of Elders has so many rules that you can scarcely do anything without breaking one of them."

"Why does the Council have so many rules?" Tails asked.

"Why does anyone have a lot of rules?" Jet said with a shrug. "So they can boss people around, I guess. Thanks to all the rules of V.F.D., the Council of Elders can tell people what to wear, how to talk, what to eat, and even what to build. Rule #67, for instance, clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices."

"Does that mean I can't build or use any mechanical devices?" Tails asked Jet. "Are my siblings and I citizens of V.F.D., now that the town is our guardian?"

"I'm afraid you are," Jet said. "You have to follow Rule #67, along with all the other rules."

"But Tails' an inventor!" Amy cried. "Mechanical devices are very important to him!"

"Is that so?" Jet said, and smiled. "Then you can be a very big help to me, Tails." He

stopped walking, and looked around the street as if it was full of spies, instead of being completely empty. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked.

"Yes," Tails answered.

Jet looked around the street once more, and then leaned forward and began speaking in a very quiet voice. "When the Council of Elders invented Rule #67," he said, "they instructed me to remove all the inventing materials in town."

"What did you say?" Amy asked.

"I didn't say anything," Jet admitted, leading the children around another corner. "The Council makes me too skittish to speak; you know that. But here's what I did. I took all of the materials and hid them out in my barn, which I've been using as sort of an inventing studio."

"I've always wanted to have an inventing studio," Tails said. Without even realizing it, he was reaching into his pocket for a ribbon, to tie his bangs up and keep it out of his eyes, as if he were already inventing something instead of just talking about it. "What have you invented so far, Jet?"

"Oh, just a few little things," Jet said, "but I have an enormous project that is nearing completion. I've been building a self-sustaining hot air mobile home."

"Neebdes?" Sonic said. he meant something like, "Could you explain that a bit more?" but Jet needed no encouragement to keep talking about his invention.

"I don't know if you've ever been up in a hot air balloon," he said, "but it's very exciting. You stand in a large basket, with the enormous balloon over your head, and you can gaze down at the entire countryside below you, spread out like a blanket. It's simply superlative. Well, my invention is nothing more than a hot air balloon — except it's much larger. Instead of one large basket, there are twelve baskets, all tied together below several hot air balloons. Each basket serves as a different room, so it's like having an entire flying house. It's completely self-sustaining — once you get up in it, you never have to go back down. In fact, if my new engine works properly, it will be impossible to get back down. The engine should last for more than one hundred years, and there's a huge storage basket that I'm filling with food, beverages, clothing, and books. Once it's completed, I'll be able to fly away from

V.F.D. and the Council of Elders and everything else that makes me skittish, and live forever in the air."

"It sounds like a marvelous invention," Tails said. "How in the world have you been able to get the engine to be self-sustaining, too?"

"That's giving me something of a problem," Jet admitted, "but maybe if you three took a look at it, we could fix the engine together."

"I'm sure Tails could be of help," Amy said, "but I'm not much of an inventor. I'm more interested in reading. Does V.F.D. have a good library?"

"Unfortunately, no," Jet said. "Rule #108 clearly states that the V.F.D. library cannot contain any books that break any of the other rules. If someone in a book uses a mechanical device, for instance, that book is not allowed in the library."

"But there are so many rules," Amy said. "What kind of books could possibly be allowed?"

"Not very many," Jet said, "and nearly all of them are dull. There's one called The Littlest Elf that's probably the most boring book ever written. It's about this irritating little man who has all sorts of tedious adventures."

"That's too bad," Amy said glumly. "I was hoping that I could do a little research into

V.F.D. — the secret, that is, not the village — in my spare time."

Jet stopped walking again, and looked once more around the empty streets. "Can you keep another secret?" he asked, and the Hedges nodded. "The Council of Elders told me to burn all of the books that broke Rule #108," he said in a quiet voice, "but I brought them to my barn instead. I have sort of a secret library there, as well as a secret inventing studio."

"Wow," Amy said. "I've seen public libraries, private libraries, school libraries, legal libraries, reptile libraries, and grammatical libraries, but never a secret library. It sounds exciting."

"It's a bit exciting," Jet agreed, "but it also makes me very skittish. The Council of Elders gets very, very angry when people break the rules. I hate to think what they'd do to me if they found out I was secretly using mechanical devices and reading interesting books."

"Azzator!" Sonic said, which meant "Don't worry — your secret is safe with us!"

Jet looked down at her quizzically. "I don't know what 'azzator' means, Sonic," he said, "but I would guess it means 'Don't forget about me!' Tails will use the studio, and Amy will use the library, but what can we do for you? What do you like to do best?"

"Bite! Run!" Sonic responded at once, but Jet frowned and took another look around him. "Don't say that so loudly, Sonic!" he whispered. "Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens

are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation. If the Council of Elders knew that you

liked to bite things for your own enjoyment, I can't imagine what they'd do. I'm sure we can find you some things to bite, but you'll have to do it in secret. And rule #4,618 said you can't run for leisure. Well, here we are."

Jet led the Hedges around one last corner, and the children got their first glimpse of where they would be living. The street they had been walking on simply ended at the turn of the corner, leading them to a place as wide and as flat as the countryside they had crossed that afternoon, with just three shapes standing out on the flat horizon. The first was a large, blue sturdy-looking house, with a pointed roof and a front porch big enough to contain a picnic table and four wooden chairs. The second was an enormous barn, right next to the house, that

hid the studio and library Jet had been talking about. But it was the third shape that caused the Hedges to stare.

The third shape on the horizon was Nevermore Tree, but to simply say it was a tree would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a body of water, or that Count Eggman was a grumpy person or that the story of Cream and myself was just a little bit sad. Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means "having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume," a phrase which here means "it was the biggest tree the Hedges had ever seen." Its trunk was so wide that the Hedges could have stood behind it, along with an elephant, three horses, and an opera singer, and not have been seen from the other side. Its branches spread out in every direction, like a fan that was taller than the house and wider than the barn, and the tree was made even taller and wider by what was sitting in it. Every last V.F.D. crow was roosting in its branches, adding a thick layer of muttering black shapes to the immense silhouette of the tree. Because the crows had gotten to Jet's house as the crow flies, instead of walking, the birds had arrived long before the Hedges, and the air was filled with the quiet rustling sounds of the birds settling in for the evening. A few of the birds had already fallen asleep, and the children could hear a few crow snores as they approached their new home.

"What do you think?" Jet asked. "It's marvelous," Tails said.

"It's superlative," Amy said.

"Ogufod!" Sonic said, which meant "What a lot of crows!"

"The noises of the crows might sound strange at first," Jet said, leading the way up the steps of the house, "but you'll get used to them before long. I always leave the windows open when I go to bed. The sounds of the crows remind me of the ocean, and I find it very peaceful to listen to them as I drift off to sleep. Speaking of bed, I'm sure you must be very tired. I've prepared three rooms for you upstairs, but if you don't like them you can choose other ones. There's plenty of room in the house. There's even room for the Quagmires to live here, when we find them. It sounds like the five of you would be happy living together, even if you had to do the chores of an entire town."

"That sounds delightful," Tails said, smiling at Jet. It made the children happy just to think of the two triplets being safe and sound, instead of in Count Eggman's clutches. "Manic is a journalist, so maybe he could start a newspaper — then V.F.D. wouldn't have to read all of the mistakes in The Daily Punctilio."

"And Sonia is a poet," Amy said. "She could write a book of poetry for the library — as long as she didn't write poetry about things that were against the rules."

Jet started to open the door of his house, but then paused and gave the Hedges a strange look. "A poet?" he asked. "What kind of poetry does she write?"

"Couplets," Tails replied.

Jet gave the children a look that was even stranger. He put down the Hedges' suitcases and reached into the pocket of his overalls. "Couplets?" he asked.

"Yes," Amy said. "She likes to write rhyming poems that are two lines long."

Jet gave the youngsters a look that was one of the strangest they had ever seen, and took his hand out of his pocket to show them a scrap of paper rolled into a tiny scroll.

"Like this?" he asked, and unrolled the paper. The Hedge orphans had to squint to read it in the dying light of the sunset, and when they read it once they had to read it again, to make sure that the light wasn't playing tricks on them and that they had read what was really there on the scrap of paper, in shaky but familiar handwriting:

 _For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear._

 _R_

Four

 _The_ Hedge orphans stared at the scrap of paper, and then at Jet, and then at the scrap of paper again. Then they stared at Jet again, and then at the scrap of paper once more and then at Jet once more and then at the scrap of paper once again, and then at Jet once again and then at the scrap of paper one more time, then finally on Jet. Their mouths were open as if they were about to speak, but the three children could not find the words they wanted to say.

The expression "a bolt from the blue" describes something so surprising that it makes your head spin, your legs wobble, and your body buzz with astonishment — as if a bolt of lightning suddenly came down from a clear blue sky and struck you at full force. Unless you are a light bulb, an electrical appliance, or a tree that is tired of standing upright, encountering a bolt from the blue is not a pleasant experience, and for a few minutes the Hedges stood on the steps of Jet's house and felt the unpleasant sensations of spinning heads, wobbly legs, and buzzing bodies.

"My goodness, Hedges," Jet said. "I've never seen anyone look so surprised. Here, come in the house and sit down. You look like a bolt of lightning just hit you at full force."

The Hedges followed Jet into his house and down a hallway to the parlor, where they sat down on a couch without a word. "Why don't you sit here for a few minutes," he said. "I'm going to fix you some hot tea. Maybe by the time it's ready you'll be able to talk." He leaned down and handed the scrap of paper to Tails, and gave Sonic a little pat on the head before walking out of the parlor and leaving the children alone. Without speaking, Tails unrolled the paper so the siblings could read the couplet again.

 _For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear._

"It's her," Amy said, speaking quietly so Jet wouldn't hear him. "I'm sure of it. Sonia Quagmire wrote this poem."

"I think so, too," Tails said. "I'm positive it's her handwriting."

"Blake!" Sonic said, which meant "And the poem is written in Sonia's distinct literary style!"

"The poem talks about sapphires," Tails said, "and the triplets' parents left behind the famous Quagmire sapphires when they died."

"Eggman kidnapped them to get ahold of those sapphires," Amy said. "That must be what it means when it says 'For sapphires we are held in here.'"

"Peng?" Sonic asked.

"I don't know how Jet got ahold of this," Tails replied. "Let's ask him."

"Not so fast," Amy said. He took the poem from Tails and looked at it again. "Maybe Jet's involved with the kidnapping in some way."

"I hadn't thought of that," Tails said. "Do you really think so?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "He doesn't seem like one of Count Eggman's associates, but sometimes we haven't been able to recognize them."

"Wryb," Sonic said thoughtfully, which meant "That's true."

"He seems like someone we can trust," Tails said. "He was excited to show us the migration of the crows, and he wanted to hear all about everything that has happened to us. That doesn't sound like a kidnapper, but I suppose there's no way of knowing for sure. But I would like to see his assistants disguise as a different speices, but Count Eggman might have used hypnotism again"

"Exactly," Amy said. "There's no way of knowing for sure."

"The tea's all ready," Jet called from the next room. "If you're up to it, why don't you join me in the kitchen? You can sit at the table while I make the curry."

The Hedges looked at one another, and nodded. "Kay!" Sonic called, and led his siblings into a large and cozy kitchen. The children took seats at a round wooden table, where Jet had placed three steaming mugs of tea, and sat quietly while Jet began to prepare dinner. It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can

trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances could change and he could become very hungry, and before you knew it you could be boiling in a soup pot, because there is no way of knowing for sure. I myself fell in love with a wonderful woman who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio. And no one had to tell the Hedge orphans that there was no way of knowing for sure, because before they became orphans, they lived for many years in the care their parents, and trusted their parents to keep on caring for them, but circumstances changed, and now their parents were dead and the children were living with a handyman in a town full of crows. But even though there is no way of knowing for sure, there are often ways to know for pretty sure, and as the three siblings watched Jet work in the kitchen they spotted some of those ways. The tune he hummed as he chopped the ingredients, for instance, was a comforting one, and the Hedges could not imagine that a person could hum like that if he were a kidnapper. When he saw that the Hedges' tea was still too hot to sip, he walked over to the kitchen and blew on each of their mugs to cool it, and it was hard to believe that someone could be hiding two triplets and cooling three children's tea at the same time. And most comforting of all, Jet didn't pester them with a lot of questions about why they were so surprised and silent. He simply kept quiet and let the Hedges wait until they were ready to speak about the scrap of paper he had given them, and the children could not imagine that such a considerate person was involved with Count Eggman in any way whatsoever. There was no way of knowing for sure, of course, but as the Hedges watched the handyman place the enchiladas in the oven to bake, they felt as if they knew for pretty sure, and by the time he sat down and joined them at the table they were ready to tell him about the couplet they had read.

"This poem was written by Sonia Quagmire," Amy said without preamble, a phrase which here means "almost as soon as Jet sat down."

"Wow," Jet said. "No wonder you were so surprised. But how can you be sure? Lots of poets write couplets. Ogden Nash, for instance."

"Ogden Nash doesn't write about sapphires," said Amy, who had received a biography of Ogden Nash for her seventh birthday. "Sonia does. When the Quagmire parents died, they left behind a fortune in sapphires. That's what she means by 'For sapphires we are held in here.'"

"Besides," Tails said, "it's Sonia's handwriting and distinct literary style."

"Well," Jet said, "if you say this poem is by Sonia Quagmire, I believe you."

"We should call Mr. Silver Poe, and tell him," Amy said.

"We can't call him," Jet said. "There are no telephones in V.F.D., because telephones are mechanical devices. The Council of Elders can send a message to him. I'm too skittish to ask them, but you can do so if you wish."

"Well, before we talk to the Council, we should know a bit more about the couplet," Tails said. "Where did you get ahold of this scrap of paper?"

"I found it today," Jet said, "beneath the branches of Nevermore Tree. I woke up this morning, and I was just leaving to walk downtown to do the morning chores when I noticed something white among all the black feathers the crows had left behind. It was this scrap of paper, all rolled up in a little scroll. I didn't understand what was written on it, and I needed to get the chores done, so I put it in the pocket of my overalls, and I didn't think of it again until just now, when we were talking about couplets. It's certainly very mysterious. How in the world did one of Sonia's poems end up in my backyard?"

"Well, poems don't get up and walk by themselves," Tails said. "Sonia must have put it here. She must be someplace nearby."

Jet shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "You saw for yourself how flat it is around here. You can see everything for miles around, and the only things here on the outskirts of town are the house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree. You're welcome to search the house, but you're not going to find Sonia Quagmire or anyone else, and I always keep the barn locked because I don't want the Council of Elders to find out I'm breaking the rules."

"Maybe she's in the tree," Amy said. "It's certainly big enough that Eggman could hide her in the branches."

"That's true," Tails said. "Last time Eggman was keeping them far below us. Maybe this time they're far above us." She shuddered, thinking of how unpleasant it would be to find yourself trapped in Nevermore Tree's enormous branches, and she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. "There's only one thing to do," she said. "We'll have to go up and look for them."

"You're right," Amy said, and stood up beside her. "Let's go." "Gerhit!" Sonic agreed.

"Hold on a minute," Jet said. "We can't just go climbing up Nevermore Tree."

"Why not?" Tails said. "We've climbed up a tower and down an elevator shaft. Climbing a tree should be no problem."

"I'm sure you three are fine climbers," Jet said, "but that's not what I mean." He stood up and walked over to the kitchen window. "Take a look outside," he said. "The sun has completely set. It's not light enough to see a friend of yours up in Nevermore Tree. Besides, the tree is covered in roosting birds. You'll never be able to climb through all of those crows

— it'll be a wild-goose chase."

The Hedges looked out the window and saw that Jet was right. The tree was merely an enormous shadow, blurry around the edges where the birds were roosting. The children knew that a climb in such darkness would indeed be a wild-goose chase, a phrase which here means "unlikely to reveal the Quagmires triplets' location." Amy and Sonic looked at their sister, hoping that she could invent a solution, and were relieved to hear she had thought of something before she could even tie her hair back in a ribbon. "We could climb with flashlights," Tails said. "If you have some tinfoil, an old broom handle, and three rubber bands, I can make a flashlight myself in ten minutes."

Jet shook his head. "Flashlights would only disturb the crows," he said. "If someone woke you up in the middle of the night and shone a light in your face, you would be very annoyed, and you don't want to be surrounded by thousands of annoyed crows. It's better to wait until morning, when the crows have migrated uptown."

"We can't wait until morning," Amy said. "We can't wait another second. The last time we found them, we left them alone for a few minutes, and then they were gone again."

"Ollawmove!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Eggman could move them at any time!"

"Well, he can't move them now," Jet pointed out. "It would be just as difficult for him to climb the tree."

"We have to do something," Tails insisted. "This poem isn't just a couplet — it's a cry for help. Sonia herself says 'Only you can end our fear.' Our friends are frightened, and it's up to us to rescue them."

Jet took some oven mitts out of the pocket of his overalls, and used them to take the enchiladas out of the oven. "I'll tell you what," he said. "It's a nice evening, and our curry is done. We can sit out on the porch, and eat our dinner, and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree. This area is so flat that even at night you can see for quite a distance, and if Count Eggman approaches — or anybody else, for that matter — we'll see him coming."

"But Count Eggman might perform his treachery after dinner," Amy said. "The only way to make sure that nobody approaches the tree is to watch the tree all night."

"We can take turns sleeping," Tails said, "so that one of us is always awake to keep watch."

Jet started to shake his head, but then stopped and looked at the children. "Normally I don't approve of children staying up late," he said finally, "unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests. But this time I suppose we can make an exception. I'll probably fall asleep, but you three can keep watch all night if you wish. Just please don't try to climb Nevermore Tree in the dark. I understand how frustrated you are, and I know that the only thing we can do is wait until morning."

The Hedges looked at one another and sighed. They were so anxious about the Quagmires that they wanted to run right out and climb Nevermore Tree, but they knew in their hearts that Jet was right.

"I guess you're right, Jet," Tails said. "We can wait until morning."

"It's the only thing we can do," Amy agreed.

"Contraire!" Sonic said, and held up his arms so that Amy could pick him up. he meant something along the lines of "I can think of something else we can do — hold me up to the window latch!" and his sister did so. Sonic's tiny fingers undid the latch of the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool evening air and the muttering sound of the crows. Then he

leaned forward as far as she could and stuck her head out into the night. "Bark!" he cried out as loudly as she could. "Bark!"

There are many expressions to describe someone who is going about something in the wrong way. "Making a mistake" is one way to describe this situation. "Screwing up" is another, although it is a bit rude, and "Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel" is a third way, although it is a bit too specific. But Sonic calling out "Bark!" brings to mind an expression that, sadly enough, describes the situation perfectly.

By "Bark!" Sonic meant "If you're up there, Quagmires, just hang on, and we'll get you out first thing in the morning," and I'm sorry to say that the expression which best describes her circumstances is "barking up the wrong tree." It was a kind gesture of Sonic's, to try to reassure Sonia and Manic that the Hedges would help them escape from Count Eggman's clutches, but the youngest Hedge was going about it the wrong way. "Bark!" he cried one more time, as Jet began to dish up the vegetarian curry, and led the Hedges to the front porch so they could eat at the picnic table and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree, but Sonic was making a mistake. The Hedges did not realize the mistake as they finished their dinner and kept their eye on the immense, muttering tree. They did not realize the mistake as they sat on the porch for the rest of the night, taking turns at squinting at the flat horizon for any sign of someone approaching and dozing beside Jet using the picnic table as a pillow. But when the sun began to rise, and one V.F.D. crow left Nevermore Tree and began to fly in a circle, and three more crows followed, and then seven more, and then twelve more, and soon the morning sky was filled with the sound of fluttering wings as the thousands of crows circled and circled above the children's heads as they rose from the wooden chairs and walked quickly toward the tree to look for any sign of the Quagmires, the Hedges saw at once how deeply mistaken they had been.

Without the murder of crows roosting in its branches, Nevermore Tree looked as bare as a skeleton. There was not a single leaf among the hundreds and hundreds of the tree's branches. Standing on its scraggly roots and looking up into the empty branches, the Hedges could see every last detail of Nevermore Tree, and they could see at once that they would not find Manic and Sonia Quagmire no matter how far they climbed. It was an enormous tree, and it was a sturdy tree, and it was apparently very comfortable to roost in, but it was the wrong tree. Amy had been barking up the wrong tree when she'd said that their kidnapped friends were probably up there, and Tails had been barking up the wrong tree when he'd said that they should climb up and look for them, and Sonic had been barking up the wrong tree when he'd said "Bark!" The Hedge orphans had been barking up the wrong tree all evening, because the only thing the children found that morning was another scrap of paper, rolled into a scroll, among all the black feathers that the crows had left behind

 _Untill dawn comes we cannot speak_

 _No words can come from this sad beak_

"My head is spinning again." Tails said holding the scrap of paper, so Amy and Sonic can read it. "And my legs and tails are all wobbly and my body is buzzing as if it's been struck by lightning. How did Sonia get another poem here when we made sure that one of us was watching the tree at every moment"

"Maybe it was here yesterday, but Jet didn't see it," Amy said.

Tails shook her head. "A white scrap of paper is very easy to see next to all these black feathers. It must have arrived here sometime in the night. But how?"

"How it got here is the least of our questions," Amy said. "Where are the Quagmires?

That's the question I want answered."

"But why doesn't Sonia just tell us," Tails said, rereading the couplet and frowning, "instead of leaving us mysterious poems on the ground where anyone could find them?"

"Maybe that's why," Amy said slowly. "Anyone could find them here on the ground. If Sonia simply wrote out where they were, and Count Eggman found the scrap of paper, he'd move them — or worse. I'm not that experienced with reading poetry, but I bet Sonia is telling us where she and her brother are. It must be hidden somewhere in the poem."

"It'll be difficult to find," Tails said, rereading the couplet. "There are so many confusing things about this poem. Why does she say 'beak'? Sonia has a nose and mouth, not a beak."

"Cra!" Sonic said, which meant "She probably means the beak of a V.F.D. crow."

"You might be right," Tails agreed. "But why does she say that no words can come from it? Of course no words can come from a beak. Birds can't talk."

"Actually, some birds can talk," Amy said. "I read an ornithological encyclopedia that discussed the parrot and the myna bird, which both can imitate human speech."

"But there aren't any parrots or myna birds around here," Tails said. "There are only crows, and crows certainly can't speak."

"And speaking of speaking," Amy said, "why does the poem say 'Until dawn comes we cannot speak'?"

"Well, both these poems arrived in the morning," Tails said. "Maybe Sonia means that she can only send us poems in the morning."

"None of this makes any sense," Amy said. "Maybe Jet can help us figure out what's going wrong."

"Laper!" Sonic said in agreement, and the children went to wake up the handyman, who was still asleep on the front porch. Tails touched his shoulder, and as he yawned and sat up the children could see that his face had lines on it from sleeping on the picnic table.

"Good morning, Hedges," he said, stretching his arms and giving them a sleepy smile. "At least, I hope it's a good morning. Did you find any sign of the Quagmires?"

"It's more like a strange morning," Tails replied. "We found a sign of them, all right.

Take a look."

Tails handed Jet the second poem, and he read it and frowned. '"Curiouser and curiouser,'" he said, quoting one of the Hedges' favorite books. "This is really turning into a puzzle."

"But a puzzle is just something you do for amusement," Amy said. "Manic and Sonia are in grave danger. If we don't figure out what these poems are trying to tell us, Count Eggman will — "

"Don't even say it," Tails said with a shiver. "We absolutely must solve this puzzle, and that is that."

Jet stood up to stretch, and looked out on the flat and empty horizon surrounding his home. "Judging by the angle of the sun," he said, "it's just about time to leave. We don' t even have time for breakfast."

"Leave?" Tails asked.

"Of course," Jet said. "Are you forgetting how many chores we have ahead of us today?" He reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a list. "We begin downtown, of course, so the crows don't get in our way. We have to trim Mrs. Morrow's hedges, wash Mr. Lesko's windows, and polish all the doorknobs at the Verhoogen family's mansion. Plus we have to sweep all the feathers out of the street, and take out everyone's garbage and recyclables."

"But the Quagmire kidnapping is much more important than any of those things," Tails said.

Jet sighed. "I agree with you," he said, "but I'm not going to argue with the Council of Elders. They make me too skittish."

"I'll be happy to explain the situation to them," Amy said.

"No," Jet decided. "It will be best to do our chores as usual. Go wash your faces, Hedges, and then we'll go."

The Hedges looked at one another in dismay, wishing that the handyman wasn't quite so afraid of a group of old people wearing crow-shaped hats, but without further discussion they walked back into the house, washed their faces, and followed Jet across the flat landscape until they reached the outskirts of town and then through the uptown district, where the V.F.D. crows were roosting, until they reached the downtown house of Mrs. Morrow, who was waiting in her pink robe on her front porch. Without a word she handed Jet a pair of hedge clippers, which are nothing more than large scissors designed to cut branches and leaves rather than paper, and gave each Hedge a large plastic bag to gather up the leaves and branches Jet would snip off. Hedge clippers and a plastic bag are not appropriate methods of greeting someone, of course, particularly first thing in the morning, but the three siblings were so busy thinking about what the poems could mean that they scarcely noticed. As they gathered up the hedge trimmings they floated several theories — the phrase "floated several theories" here means "talked quietly about the two couplets by Sonia Quagmire" — until the hedge looked nice and neat and it was time to walk down the block to where Mr. Lesko lived. Mr. Lesko — whom the Hedges recognized as the old lion who was worried that the children might have to live with him — was even ruder than Mrs. Morrow. He merely pointed at a pile of window-cleaning supplies and stomped back into his house, but once again the Hedges were concentrating on solving the mystery of the two messages they had been left, and scarcely noticed Mr. Lesko's

rudeness. Tails and Amy each began scrubbing dirt off a window with a damp rag, while Sonic stood by with a bucket of soapy water and Jet climbed up to clean the windows on the first and second floor, but all the children thought of was each line of Sonia's confusing poem, until they were finished with the windows and were ready to go to work on the rest of the chores for the day, which I will not describe for you, not only because they were so boring that I would fall asleep while writing them down on paper, but because the Hedge orphans scarcely noticed them. The children thought about the couplets while they polished the Verhoogen doorknobs, and they thought about them when they swept the feathers from the street into a dustpan that Sonic held while crawling in front of his siblings, but they still could not imagine how Sonia managed to leave a poem underneath Nevermore Tree. They thought about the couplets as they carried the garbage and recyclables from all of V.F.D.'s downtown residents, and they thought about them as they ate a lunch of cabbage sandwiches that one of V.F.D.'s restaurant owners had agreed to provide as his part in the village's attempt to raise the children, but they still could not figure out what Sonia was trying to tell them. They thought of the couplets when Jet read out the list of afternoon chores, which included such tedious duties as making citizens' beds, washing townspeople's dishes, preparing enough hot fudge sundaes for the entire Council of Elders to enjoy as an afternoon snack, and polishing Fowl Fountain, but no matter how hard they thought, the Hedges got no closer to solving the couplets' mysteries. "I'm very impressed with how hard you three children are working," Jet said, as he and the children began their last afternoon chore. Fowl Fountain was made in the shape of an enormous crow, and stood in the middle of the uptown district, in a courtyard with many different streets leading out of it. The children were scrubbing at the crow's metal body, which was covered in carvings of feather shapes to make it look more realistic. Jet was standing on a ladder scrubbing at the crow's metal head, which was facing straight up and spitting a steady stream of water out of a hole fashioned to look like its mouth, as if the enormous bird were gargling and spitting water all over its own body. The effect was hideous, but the V.F.D. crows must have thought differently, because the fountain was covered in feathers that they had left behind during their uptown morning roost.

"When the Council of Elders told me that the village was serving as your guardian," Jet continued, "I was afraid that three small children wouldn't be able to do all these chores without complaining."

"We're used to strenuous exercise," Tails replied. "When we lived in Paltryville, we debarked trees and sawed them into boards, and at Prufrock Preparatory School we had to run hundreds of laps every night."

"Besides," Amy said, "we're so busy thinking about the couplets that we've scarcely noticed our work."

"I thought that's why you were so quiet," Jet said. "How do the poems go again?"

The Hedges had looked at the two scraps of paper so many times over the course of the day that they could recite both poems from memory.

"For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear ." Tails said.

"Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak." Amy said. "Dulch!" Sonic added, which meant something like, "And we still haven't figured out

what they really mean."

"They're tricky, all right," Jet said. "In fact, I..."

Here his voice trailed off, and the children were startled to see the handyman turn around so he was no longer facing them and begin to scrub the left eye of the metal crow, as if someone had flicked a switch that stopped him from talking.

"Fowl Fountain still doesn't look completely clean," said a stern voice from behind the children, and the Hedges turned around to see three women from the Council of Elders who had entered the courtyard and now stood frowning at them. Jet was so skittish that he didn't even look up to answer, but the children were not nearly as intimidated, a word which here means "made skittish by three older women wearing crow-shaped hats."

"We're not completely finished cleaning it," Tails explained politely. "I do hope you enjoyed your hot fudge sundaes that we prepared for you earlier."

"They were O.K.," one of them said, with a shrug that bobbed her crow hat slightly.

"Mine had too many nuts," another one of them said. "Rule #961 clearly states that the Council of Elders' hot fudge sundaes cannot have more than fifteen pieces of nuts each, and mine might have had more than that."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Amy said, not adding that anyone who is so picky about a hot fudge sundae should make it themselves.

"We've stacked up the dirty ice cream dishes in the Snack Hut," the third one said. "Tomorrow afternoon you'll wash them as part of your uptown chores. But we came to tell Jet something."

The children looked up to the top of the ladder, thinking that Jet would have to turn around and speak to them now, no matter how skittish he was. But he merely gave a little cough, and continued to scrub at Fowl Fountain. Tails remembered what her father had taught her to say when he was unable to come to the phone, and she spoke up.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Jet is occupied at the moment. May I give him a message?"

The Elders looked at one another and nodded, which made it look like their hats were pecking at one another. "I suppose so," one of them said. "If we can trust a little girl like you to deliver it."

"The message is very important," the second one said, and once again I find it necessary to use the expression "bolt from the blue." You would think, after the mysterious appearance of not one but two poems by Sonia Quagmire at the base of Nevermore Tree, that no more bolts from the blue would appear in the village of V.F.D. A bolt of lightning, after all, rarely comes down from a clear blue sky and strikes the exact same place more than once. But for the Hedge orphans, life seemed to be little else than bolt after unfortunate bolt from the blue, ever since Mr. Silver Poe had delivered the first bolt from the blue in telling them that their parents had been killed, and no matter how many bolts from the blue they experienced, their heads never spun any less, and their legs never got less wobbly, and their bodies never buzzed any less with astonishment when another bolt arrived from the blue. So when the Hedges heard the Elders' message, they almost had to sit down in Fowl Fountain, because the message was such an utter surprise. It was a message that they thought they might never hear, and it is a message that only reaches me in my most pleasant dreams, which are few and far between.

"The message is this," said the third member of the Council of Elders, and she leaned her head in close so that the children could see every felt feather of her crow hat. "Count Eggman has been captured," she said, and the Hedges felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck them once more.

 _R_

Six

 _Although_ "jumping to conclusions" is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper. If you jump in front of a moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not to jump at all.

But it is hard not to jump at all when you are jumping to conclusions, and it is impossible to make sure that you are jumping to a safe place, because all "jumping to conclusions" means is that you are believing something is true even though you don't actually know whether it is or not. When the Hedge orphans heard from the three members of V.F.D.'s Council of Elders that Count Eggman had been captured, they were so excited that they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was true.

"It's true," said one of the Elders, which didn't help things any. "A man arrived in town this morning, with one eyebrow and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle."

"It must be Eggman," Tails said, jumping to conclusions.

"Of course it is," the second Council member said. "He nearly matched the description that Mr. Silver Poe gave us, so we arrested him immediately."

"So it's true," Amy said, joining his sister in the jump. "You've really captured Count Eggman."

"Of course it's true," the third woman said impatiently. "We've even contacted The Daily Punctilio, and they'll write a story about it. Soon the whole world will know that Count Eggman has been captured at last."

"Hooray!" cried Sonic, the last Hedge to jump to conclusions.

"The Council of Elders has called a special meeting," said the woman who appeared to be the eldest Elder. Her crow hat bobbed in excitement as she spoke. "All citizens are required to go to Town Hall immediately, to discuss what is to be done with him. After all, Rule

#19,833 clearly states that no villains are allowed within the city limits. The usual punishment for breaking a rule is burning at the stake."

"Burning at the stake?" Tails said.

"Of course," an Elder said. "Whenever we capture rulebreakers, we tie them to a wooden pole and light a fire underneath their feet. That's why I warned you about the number of nuts on my hot fudge sundae. It would be a shame to light you on fire."

"You mean the punishment is the same, no matter what rule you break?" Amy asked.

"Of course," another Elder replied. "Rule #2 clearly states that anyone who breaks a rule is burned at the stake. If we didn't burn a rule-breaker at the stake, we would be rule breakers ourselves, and someone else would have to burn us at the stake. Understand?"

"Sort of," Tails said, although in truth he didn't understand it at all. None of the Hedges did. Although they despised Count Eggman, the children didn't like the idea of lighting him on fire. Burning a villain at the stake felt like something a villain would do rather than something done by fowl devotees. In fact they felt it was too harsh of a punishment

"But Count Eggman isn't just a rulebreaker," Amy said, choosing his words very carefully. "He has committed all sorts of terrible crimes. It would seem best to turn him over to the authorities, rather than burning him at the stake."

"Well, that's something we can talk about at the meeting," a Councilwoman said, "and we'd better hurry or we'll be late. Jet, get down from that ladder."

Jet didn't answer, but he got down from the ladder and followed the three members of the Council of Elders away from Fowl Fountain, keeping his eyes on the ground at all times. The Hedges followed Jet, their stomachs fluttering as they walked through the uptown district to the downtown one, where the crows were roosting as they had been yesterday, when the children had first arrived in V.F.D. Their stomachs were fluttering with relief and excitement, because they believed that Count Eggman had been captured, but also with nervousness and fear, because they hated the idea that he might be burned at the stake. The punishment for V.F.D. rulebreakers made the Hedges remember their parents' deaths, and they didn't like the idea of anyone being lit on fire, no matter how vile a person they were. It was unpleasant to feel relief, excitement, nervousness, and fear all at once, and by the time they arrived at Town Hall, the stomachs of the Hedge orphans were as fluttery as the crows, which were muttering and scuffling as far as the eye could see.

When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things. The three members of the Council led the way to the large room in Town Hall decorated with portraits of crows. The room was in pandemonium, a phrase which here means "filled with Elders and townspeople standing around arguing." The Hedges scanned the room for a sign of Eggman, but it was impossible to see anyone over the bobbing crow heads.

"We need to begin the meeting!" called one of the Council. "Elders, find your places on the bench. Townspeople, find your places on folding chairs." The townspeople stopped talking at once and hurried into their seats, perhaps afraid that they would be burned at the stake if they didn't sit down quickly enough. Tails and Amy sat down next to Jet, who was still staring at the floor in silence, and picked up Sonic so she could see.

"Jet, place Officer Luciana and Count Eggman on the platform for discussion," an Elder ordered, as the last few townspeople sat down.

"There's no need," called out a grand voice from the back of the room, and the children turned around to see Officer Luciana, with a big red grin beneath the visor of her helmet. "I can get to the platform myself. After all, I'm the Chief of Police."

"That's true," another Elder said, and several other people on the bench nodded their crow hats in agreement as Luciana strolled to the platform, each of her black boots making a loud clunk! on the shiny floor.

"I'm proud to say," Officer Luciana said proudly, "that I've already made the first arrest of my career as Chief of Police. Isn't that smashing?"

"Hear, hear!" cried several townspeople.

"And now," Luciana continued, "let's meet the man we're all dying to burn at the stake — Count Eggman!"

With a grand gesture, Officer Luciana stepped off the platform, clunked to the back of the room, and dragged a frightened-looking man out of a folding chair. He was dressed in a rumpled suit with a large rip across the shoulder, and a pair of shiny silver handcuffs. He wasn't wearing any shoes or socks, and as Officer Luciana marched him to the platform the children could see that he had a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle, just like Count Eggman had. And when he turned his head and gazed around the room, the children could see that he had only one eyebrow, instead of two, just like Count Eggman had. But the children could immediantly see that he wasn't Count Eggman. He wasn't as tall as Count Eggman, and he wasn't quite as thin, and there wasn't dirt under his fingernails, or a nasty and greedy look in his eyes. And he was a hedgehog, but he also looked a bit like a rabbit by his nose and he was a deep dark brown, not the night black of Count Eggman. But most of all the Hedges could see that he wasn't Count Eggman the way you could tell that a stranger wasn't your uncle, even if he were wearing the same polka-dot coat and curly wig that your uncle always wore. The three siblings looked at one another, and then at the man being dragged onto the platform, and they realized with a sinking feeling that they had been jumping to conclusions about Eggman's capture.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Officer Luciana said, "and orphans, I give you Count Eggman!"

"But I'm not Count Eggman!" the rabbit cried. "My name is Chocolate , and — "

"Silence!" commanded one of the meanest-looking members of the Council of Elders. "Rule #920 clearly states that no one may talk while on the platform."

"Let's burn him at the stake!" cried a voice, and the children turned to see Mr. Lesko standing up and pointing at the trembling man on the platform. "We haven't burned anyone at the stake for a long time!"

Several members of the Council nodded their heads. "That's a good point," one of them said.

"He's Eggman, all right," Mrs. Morrow called from the far side of the room. "He has one eyebrow instead of two, and there's a tattoo of an eye on his ankle."

"But lots of people have only one eyebrow," Chocolate cried, "Count Eggman is a hedgehog! I'm a rabbit hedgehog hybrid! and I have this tattoo as part of my job."

"And your job is villain!" Mr. Lesko called out triumphantly. "Rule #19,833 clearly states that no villains are allowed within the city limits, so we get to burn you at the stake!"

"Hear, hear!" called several voices in agreement.

"I'm not a villain!" Chocolate said frantically. "I work for the volunteer — "

"Enough is enough!" said one of the youngest Elders. "Eggman, you have already been warned about Rule #920. You are not allowed to speak when you are on the platform. Do any more citizens wish to speak before we schedule the burning of Eggman at the stake?"

Tails stood up, which is not an easy thing to do if your head is still spinning, your legs are still wobbly, and your body is still buzzing with astonishment. "I wish to speak," she said. "The town of V.F.D. is my guardian, and so I am a citizen."

Amy, who had Sonic in his arms, stood up and took his place beside his sister. "This man," he said, pointing at Chocolate , "is not Count Eggman. Officer Luciana has made a mistake in arresting him, and we don't want to make things worse by burning an innocent man at the stake."

Chocolate gave the children a grateful smile, but Officer Luciana turned around and clunked over to where the Hedges were standing. The children could not see her eyes, because the visor on her helmet was still down, but her bright red lips curled into a tight smile. "It is you who are making things worse," she said, and then turned to the Council of Elders. "Obviously, the shock of seeing Count Eggman has confused these children," she said to them.

"Of course it has!" agreed an Elder. "Now speaking as a member of the town serving as their legal guardian, I say that these children clearly need to be put to bed. Now, are there any adults who wish to speak?"

The Hedges looked over at Jet, in the hopes that he would overcome his nervousness and stand up to speak. Surely he didn't believe that the three siblings were so confused that they didn't know who Count Eggman was. But Jet did not rise to the occasion, a phrase which here means "continued to sit in his folding chair with his eyes cast downward," and after a moment the Council of Elders closed the matter.

"I hereby close the matter," an Elder said. "Jet, please take the Hedges home." "Yes!" called out a member of the Verhoogen family. "Put the orphans to bed and burn

Eggman at the stake!"

"Hear, hear!" several voices cried.

One of the Council of Elders shook his head. "It's too late to burn anyone at the stake today," he said, and there was a mutter of disappointment from the townspeople. "We will burn Count Eggman at the stake right after breakfast," he continued. "All uptown residents should bring flaming torches, and all downtown residents should bring wood for kindling and some sort of healthy snack. See you tomorrow."

"And in the meantime," Officer Luciana announced, "I will keep him in the uptown jail, across from Fowl Fountain."

"But I'm innocent!" the man on the platform cried. "Please listen to me, I beg of you! I'm not Count Eggman! My name is Chocolate !" He turned to the three siblings, who could see he had tears in his eyes. "Oh, Hedges," he said, "I am so relieved to see that you are alive. Your parents — "

"That's enough out of you," Officer Luciana said, clasping her white-gloved hand over Chocolate 's mouth.

"Pipit!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "Wait!" but Officer Luciana either didn't listen or didn't care, and she quickly dragged Chocolate out the door before he could say another word. The townspeople rose up in their folding chairs to watch him go, and then began talking among themselves as the Council of Elders left the bench. The Hedges saw Mr. Lesko share a joke with the Verhoogen family, as if the entire evening had been a jolly party instead of a meeting sentencing an innocent man to death. "Pipit!" Sonic shrieked again, but nobody listened. His eyes still on the floor, Jet took Tails and Amy by the hand and led them out of Town Hall. The handyman did not say a word, and the Hedges didn't, either. Their stomachs felt too fluttery and their hearts too heavy to even open their mouths. As they left the council meeting without another glimpse of Chocolate or Officer Luciana, they felt a pain even worse than that of jumping to conclusions. The children felt as if they had jumped off a cliff, or jumped in front of a moving train. As they stepped out of Town Hall into the still night air, the Hedge orphans felt as if they would never jump for joy again.

In this unpleasant worls of ours, there are many, many unpleast places to be. You can be in a river with anery electric eels. You can be in a supermarket with hungery lions. You can be in a hotel with a murder. You can be lost in a forest that is slowiny filling up with water. You can be in a wasp nest, or in a empty airport with hundreds of hostile werewolves. But one of the most unpleasant things that can happen is to find yourself in a quandary which is where the Hedge orphans found themselves that night. Finding yourself in a quandary means that everything seems confusing and dangerous and you don't know what in the world to do about it, and it is one of the worst unpleasantries you can encounter. The three

Hedges sat in Jet's kitchen as the handyman prepared another Indian dinner, and compared with the quandary they were in, all their other problems felt like the small potatoes he was chopping into thirds.

"Everything seems confusing," Tails said glumly. "The Quagmire triplets are somewhere nearby, but we don't know where, and the only clues we have are two confusing poems. And now, there's a man who isn't Count Eggman, but he has an eye tattooed on his ankle, and he wanted to tell us something about our parents."

"It's more than confusing," Amy said. "It's dangerous. We need to rescue the Quagmires before Count Eggman does something dreadful, and we need to convince the Council of Elders that the man they arrested is really Chocolate , otherwise they'll burn him at the stake."

"Quandary?" Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "What in the world can we do about it?"

"I don't know what we can do about it, Sonic," Tails replied. "We spent all day trying to figure out what the poems meant, and we tried our best to convince the Council of Elders that Officer Luciana made a mistake." he and his siblings looked at Jet, who had certainly not tried his best with the Council of Elders but instead had sat in his folding chair without saying a word.

Jet sighed and looked unhappily at the children. "I know I should have said something," he told them, "but I was far too skittish. The Council of Elders is so imposing that I can never say a word in their presence. However, I can think of something that we can do to help."

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"We can enjoy these palak paneer," he said. "palak paneer from the Indian Subcontinent, consisting of paneer in a thick paste made from puréed spinach and seasoned with garlic, garam masala, and other spices. With roti. I also made some onion rings"

The siblings looked at one another, trying to imagine how a Indian dish would get them out of their quandary. "How will that help?" Tails asked doubtfully.

"I don't know," Jet admitted. "But they're almost ready, and my recipe is a delicious one, if I do say so myself. Come on, let's eat. Maybe a good dinner will help you think of something."

The children sighed, but nodded their heads in agreement and got up to set the table, and curiously enough, a good dinner did in fact help the Hedges think of something. As Tails took his first bite of curry, he felt the gears and levers of his inventing brain spring into action. As Amy dipped her onion ring into the spicy tomato sauce, he began to think of books she had read that might be helpful. And as Sonic smeared sause all over his face, he clicked her four sharp teeth together, and shuffled his feet and tried to think of a way that they might be useful. By the time the Hedges were finishing the meal Jet had prepared for them, their ideas had grown and developed into full-fledged plans, just as Nevermore Tree had grown a long time ago from a tiny seed and Fowl Fountain had been built recently from someone's hideous blueprint.

It was Sonic who spoke up first. "Plan!" he said. "What is it, Sonic?" Amy asked.

With a tiny finger covered in curry sauce, Sonic pointed out the window at Nevermore Tree, which was covered in the V.F.D. crows as it was every evening.

"Merganser!" he said firmly.

"My brother says that tomorrow morning there will probably be another poem from Sonia in the same spot," Amy explained to Jet. "He wants to spend the night underneath the tree. he's so small that whoever is delivering the poems probably won't spot him, and he'll be able to find out how the couplets are getting to us."

"And that should bring us closer to finding the Quagmires," Tails said. "That's a good plan, Sonic."

"My goodness, Sonic," Jet said. "Won't you be frightened spending all night underneath a whole murder of crows?"

"Therill," Sonic said, which meant "It won't be any more frightening than the time I climbed up an elevator shaft with my teeth."

"I think I have a good plan, too," Amy said. "Jet, yesterday you told us about the secret library you have in the barn."

"Ssh!" Jet said, looking around the kitchen. "Not so loud! You know it's against the rules to have all those books, and I don't want to be burned at the stake."

"I don't want anyone to be burned at the stake," Amy said. "Now, does the secret library contain books about the rules of V.F.D.?"

"Absolutely," Jet said. "Lots of them. Because the rule books describe people breaking the rules, they break Rule #108, which clearly states that the V.F.D. library cannot contain any books that break any of the rules. And for my own amusement I kept all the rules that they made. It's the dark blue ones in a pile you cant miss it"

"Well, I'm going to read as many rule books as I can," Amy said. "There must be a way to save Chocolate from being burned at the stake, and I bet I'll find it in the pages of that book."

"My word, Amy," Jet said. "Won't you be bored reading all those rule books?"

"It won't be any more boring than the time I had to read all about grammar, in order to save Aunt Sticks," she replied.

"Sonic is working to save the Quagmires," Tails said, "and Amy is working to save Chocolate . I've got to work to save us."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"Well, I think Count Eggman must be behind all this trouble," Tails said.

"Grebe!" Sonic said, which meant "As usual!"

"If the town of V.F.D. burns Chocolate at the stake," Tails continued, "then everyone will think Count Eggman is dead. I bet The Daily Punctilio will even have a story that says so. It will be very good news for Eggman — the real one, that is. If everyone thinks he's dead, Eggman can be as treacherous as he likes, and the authorities won't come looking for him."

"That's true," Amy said. "Count Eggman must have found Chocolate — whoever he is — and brought him into town. He knew that Officer Luciana would think he was Eggman. But what does that have to do with saving us?"

"Well, if we rescue the Quagmires and prove that Chocolate is innocent," Tails said, "Count Eggman will come after us, and we can't rely on the Council of Elders to protect us."

"Poe!" Sonic said.

"Or Mr. Silver Poe," Tails agreed. "That's why we'll need a way to save ourselves." She turned to Jet. "Yesterday, you also told us about your self-sustaining hot air mobile home."

Jet looked around the kitchen again, to sure no one was listening. "Yes," he said, "but I think I'm going to stop work on it. If the Council of Elders learns that I'm breaking Rule

#67, I could be burned at the stake. Anyway, I can't seem to get the engine to work."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at it " Tails said. "Maybe I could help finish it. You wanted to use the self-sustaining hot air mobile home to escape from V.F.D. and the Council of Elders and everything else that makes you skittish, but it would also make an excellent escape vehicle."

"Maybe it could be both," Jet said shyly, and reached across the table to pat Sonic on the shoulder. "I very much enjoy the company of you three children, and it would be delightful to share a mobile home with you. There's plenty of room in the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, and once we get it to work we could launch it and never come down. Count Eggman and his associates would never be able to bother you again. What do you think?"

The three Hedges listened closely to Jet's suggestion, but when they tried to tell him what they thought, it felt like they were in a quandary all over again. On one hand, it would be exciting to live in such an unusual way, and the thought of being safe forever from Count Eggman's evil clutches was very appealing, to say the least. Tails looked at his baby brother and thought about the promise he had made, when Sonic was born, that he would always look after his younger siblings and make sure they wouldn't get into trouble. Amy looked at Jet, who was the only citizen in this vile village who really seemed to care about the children, as a guardian should. And Sonic looked out the window at the evening sky, and remembered the first time he and his siblings saw the V.F.D. crows fly in superlative circles and wished that they, too, could escape from all their worries. But on the other hand, the Hedges felt that flying away from all their trouble, and living forever up in the sky, didn't seem to be a proper way to live one's life. Sonic was a baby, Amy was only twelve, and even Tails, the eldest, was fourteen, which is not really so old. The Hedges had many things they hoped to accomplish on the ground, and they weren't sure that they could simply abandon all those hopes so early in their lives. The Hedges sat at the table and thought about Jet's plan, and it seemed to the children that if they spent the

rest of their lives floating around the heavens, they simply wouldn't be in their element, a phrase which here means "in the sort of home the three siblings would prefer."

"First things first," Tails said finally, hoping that he wasn't hurting Jet's feelings.

"Before we make a decision about the rest of our lives, let's get Manic and Sonia out

of Eggman's clutches."

"And make sure Chocolate won't be burned at the stake," Amy said.

"Albico!" Sonic added, which meant something like, "And let's solve the mystery of

V.F.D. that the Quagmires told us about!"

Jet sighed. "You're right," he said. "Those things are more important, even if they do make me skittish. Well, let's take Sonic to the tree and then it's off to the barn, where the library and inventing studio are. It looks like it's going to be another long night, but hopefully this time we won't be barking up the wrong tree."

The Hedges smiled at the handyman and followed him out into the night, which was cool and breezy and filled with the sounds of the murder of crows settling down for the night. They kept on smiling as they separated, with Sonic crawling toward Nevermore Tree and the two older Hedges following Jet to the barn, and they continued to smile as they began to put each of their plans into action. Tails smiled because Jet's inventing studio was very well-equipped, with plenty of pliers and glue and wire and everything his inventing brain needed, and because Jet's selfsustaining hot air mobile home was an enormous, fascinating mechanism — just the sort of challenging invention he loved to work on. Amy smiled because Jet's library was very comfortable, with some good sturdy tables and cushioned chairs just perfect for reading in, and because the books on the rules of V.F.D. were very thick and full of difficult words — just the sort of challenging reading she enjoyed. And Sonic smiled because there were several dead branches of Nevermore Tree that had fallen to the ground, so he would have something to gnaw on as he hid and waited for the next couplet to arrive. And the tree was so wide he can run around it once in a minute. The children were in their elements. Tails was in his element at the inventing studio, and Amy was in her element at the library, and Sonic was in his just from being low to the ground and near something he could bite, and plenty of area to run. Tails tied his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, and Amy polished her glasses, and Sonic stretched his mouth to get his teeth ready for the task ahead of him, and the three siblings smiled more than they had since their arrival in town. The Hedge orphans were in their elements, and they hoped that being in their elements would lead them out of their quandary.

Chapter 8

 _The_ next morning began with a colorful and lengthy sunrise, which Sonic saw from his hiding place at the bottom of Nevermore Tree. It continued with the sounds of awakening crows, which Amy heard from the library in the barn, and followed with the sight of the birds making their familiar circle in the sky, which Tails saw just as he was leaving the inventing studio. By the time Amy joined her brother outside the barn, and Sonic half crawled half ran across the flat landscape to reach them, the birds had stopped circling and were flying together uptown, and the morning was so pretty and peaceful that as I describe it I can almost forget that it was a very, very sad morning for me, a morning that I wish I could strike forever from the Snicket calendar. But I can't erase this day, any more than I can write a happy ending to this book, for the simple reason that the story does not go that way. No matter how lovely the morning was, or how confident the Hedges felt about what they had discovered over the course of the night, there isn't a happy ending on the horizon of this story, any more than there was an elephant on the horizon of V.F.D.

"Good morning," Tails said to Amy, and yawned.

"Good morning," Amy replied. He was holding two books in his arms, but nevertheless he managed to wave at Sonic, who was still crawling toward them. "How did everything go with Jet in the inventing studio?"

"Well, Jet fell asleep a few hours ago," Tails said, "but I discovered a few small flaws in the self-sustaining hot air mobile home. The engine conductivity was low, due to some problems with the electromagnetic generator Jet built. This meant that the inflation rate of the balloons was often uneven, so I reconfigured some key conduits. Also, the water circulation system was run on ill-fitting pipes, which meant that the selfsustaining aspect of the food center probably wouldn't last as long as it should, so I rerouted some of the aquacycling."

"Ning!" Sonic called, as he reached his siblings.

"Good morning, Sonic," Amy said. "Tails was just telling me that he noticed a few things wrong with Jet's invention, but he thinks he fixed them."

"Well, I'd like to test the whole device out before we go up in it, if there's time," Tails said, picking up Sonic and holding him, "but I think everything should work pretty well. It's a

fantastic invention. A small group of people could really spend the rest of their lives safely in the air. Did you discover anything in the library?"

"Well, first I discovered that books about V.F.D. rules are actually quite fascinating," Amy said. "Rule #19, for instance, clearly states that the only pens that are acceptable within the city limits are ones made from the feathers of crows. And yet Rule #39 clearly states that it is illegal to make anything out of crow feathers. How can the townspeople obey both rules at once? That's one of many."

"Maybe they don't have any pens at all," Tails said, "but that's not important. Did you discover anything helpful in the rule books?"

"Yes," Amy said, and opened one of the books he was carrying. "Listen to this: Rule

#1,292 clearly states that any person who is going to be burned at the stake has the opportunity to make a speech right before the fire is lit. We can go to the uptown jail this morning and make sure Chocolate gets that opportunity. In his speech, he can tell people who he really is, and why he has that tattoo."

"But he tried to do that yesterday at the meeting," Tails said. "Nobody believed him.

Nobody even listened to him."

"I was thinking the same thing," Amy said, opening the second book, "until I read this." "Towhee?" Sonic asked, which meant something like "Is there a rule that clearly states

that people must listen to speeches?"

"No," Amy replied. "There isn't."

"That's ridiculous," Tails said.

"I agree," Amy said, "but some reason it reminds me of mob psychology. I happened to find a book on psychology to let you know."

"Wazay?" Sonic asked.

"A mob is a crowd of people," Amy explained, "usually an angry one."

"Like the townspeople and the Council of Elders yesterday," Tails said, "in Town Hall.

They were incredibly angry."

"Exactly," Amy said. "Now listen to this." The middle Hedge opened a book and began to read out loud. "'The subliminal emotional tenor of a mob's unruliness lies in solitary opinions, expressed emphatically at various points in the stereo field.'"

"Tenor? Stereo?" Tails asked. "It sounds like you're talking about opera."

"The book uses a lot of complicated words," Amy said, "but luckily there was a dictionary in Jet's library. It had been removed from V.F.D. because it defined the phrase

'mechanical device.' All that sentence means is that if a few people, scattered throughout the crowd, begin to shout their opinions, soon the whole mob will agree with them. It happened in the council meeting yesterday — a few people said angry things, and soon the whole room was angry-"

"Vue," Sonic said, which meant "Yes, I remember."

"When we get to the jail," Amy said, "we'll make sure that Chocolate is allowed to give his speech. Then, as he explains himself, we'll scatter ourselves throughout the crowd and shout things like, 'I believe him!' and 'Hear, hear!' Mob psychology should make everyone demand Chocolate 's freedom."

"Do you really think that will work?" Tails asked.

"Well, I'd prefer to test it first," Amy said, "just like you'd prefer to test the selfsustaining hot air mobile home. But we don't have time. Now, Sonic, what did you discover from spending the night under a tree?"

Sonic held up one of her small hands to show them another scrap of paper. "Couplet!" he cried out triumphantly, and her siblings gathered around to read it.

 _The first thing you read contains the clue: An initial way to speak to you._

"Good work, Sonic," Tails said. "This is definitely another poem by Sonia Quagmire." "And it seems to lead us back to the first poem," Amy said. "It says 'The first thing you

read contains the clue.'"

"But what does 'An initial way to speak to you' mean?" Tails asked. "Initials, like V.F.D.?"

"Maybe," Amy replied, "but the word 'initial' can also mean 'first.' I think Sonia means that this is the first way she can speak to us — through these poems."

"But we already know that," Tails said. "The Quagmires wouldn't have to tell us. Let's look at all the poems together. Maybe it will give us a complete picture."

Tails took the other two poems out of his pocket, and the three children looked at them together.

 _For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear._

 _Until dawn comes we cannot speak._

 _No words can come from this sad beak. The first thing you read contains the clue:_

 _An initial way to speak to you_.

"The part about the beak is still the most confusing," Amy said.

"Leucophrys!" Sonic said, which meant "I think I can explain that — the crows are delivering the couplets."

"How can that be possible?" Tails asked.

"Loidya!" Sonic answered. He meant something like "I'm absolutely sure that nobody approached the tree all night, and at dawn the note dropped down from the branches of the tree."

"I've heard of carrier pigeons," Amy said "Those are birds that carry messages for a living But I've never heard of carrier crows."

"Maybe they don't know that they're carrier crows," Tails said. "The Quagmires could be attaching the scraps of paper to the crows in some way — putting them in their beaks, or in their feathers — and then the poems come loose when they sleep in Nevermore Tree. The triplets must be somewhere in town. But where?"

"Ko!" Sonic cried, pointing to the poems.

"Sonic's right," Amy said excitedly. "It says 'Until dawn comes we cannot speak.' That means they're attaching the poems in the morning, when the crows roost uptown."

"Well, that's one more reason to get uptown," Tails replied. "We can save Chocolate before he's burned at the stake, and search for the Quagmires. Without you, Sonic, we wouldn't know where to look for the Quagmires."

"Hasserin," Sonic said, which meant "And without you, Amy, we wouldn't know how to save Chocolate ."

"And without you, Tails," Amy said, "we'd have no chance of escaping from this town."

"And if we keep standing here," Tails said, "we won't save anybody. Let's go wake up Jet, and get moving. The Council of Elders said they'd burn Chocolate at the stake right after breakfast."

"Yikes!" Sonic said, which meant "That doesn't give us much time," so the Hedges didn't take much time walking into the barn and through Jet's library, which was so massive that the two Hedge brothers could not believe Amy had managed to find helpful information among the shelves and shelves of books. There were bookshelves so tall you had to stand on a ladder to reach their highest shelves, and ones so short that you had to crawl on the floor to read their titles. There were books that looked too heavy to move, and books that looked too light to stay in one place, and there were books that looked so dull that the boys could not imagine anyone reading them — but these were the books that were still stacked in huge heaps spread out on the tables after Amy's all-night reading session. Tails and Sonic wanted to pause for a moment and take it all in, but they knew that they didn't have much time.

Behind the last bookshelf of the library was Jet's inventing studio, where Amy and Sonic got their first glimpse of the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, which was a marvelous contraption. Twelve enormous baskets, each about the size of a small room, were stacked up in the corner, connected by all sorts of different tubes, pipes, and wires, and circled around the baskets were a series of large metal tanks, wooden grates, glass jugs, ladders, paper bags, plastic containers, and rolls of twine, along with a number of large mechanical devices with buttons, switches, and gears, and a big pile of deflated balloons. The self-sustaining hot air mobile home was so immense and complicated that it reminded the two younger Hedges of what they thought of when they pictured Tails' inventive brain, and every piece of it looked so interesting that Amy and Sonic could scarcely decide what to look at first. But the Hedges knew that they didn't have much time, so rather than explain the invention to his siblings, Tails walked quickly over to one of the baskets, which Amy and Sonic were surprised to see contained a bed, which in turn contained a sleeping Jet.

"Good morning," the handyman said, when Tails gently shook him awake.

"It is a good morning," she replied. "We've discovered some marvelous things. We'll explain everything on our way uptown."

"Uptown?" Jet said, stepping out of the basket. "But the crows are roosting uptown.

We do the downtown chores in the morning, remember?"

"We're not doing any chores this morning," Amy said firmly. "That's one of the things we need to explain."

Jet yawned, stretched and rubbed his eyes, and then smiled at the three children "Well, fire away," he said, using a phrase which here means "begin telling me about your plans."

The siblings led Jet back through his inventing studio and secret library and waited while he locked up the barn. Then, as they took their first few steps across the flat landscape toward the uptown district, the Hedge orphans fired away. Tails told Jet about the improvements he had made on his invention, and Amy told him about what she had learned in Jet's library, and Sonic told him — with some translation help from his siblings — about his discovery of how Sonia's poems were being delivered. By the time the Hedges were unrolling the last scrap of paper and showing Jet the third couplet, they had already reached the crow-covered outskirts of V.F.D.'s uptown district.

"So the Quagmires are somewhere in the uptown district," Jet said. "But where?"

"I don't know," Tails admitted, "but we'd better try to save Chocolate first. Which way is the uptown jail?" Tails asked Jet.

"It's across from Fowl Fountain," the handyman replied, "but it looks like we won't need directions. Look what's ahead of us."

The children looked, and could see some of the townspeople holding flaming torches and walking about a block ahead of them. "It must be after breakfast," Amy said. "Let's hurry."

The Hedges walked as quickly as they could between the muttering crows roosting on the ground, with Jet trailing skittishly behind them, and soon they rounded a corner and

reached Fowl Fountain — or at least what they could see of it. The fountain was swarming with crows who were fluttering their wings in the water in order to give themselves a morning bath, and the Hedges could scarcely see one metal feather of the hideous landmark Across the courtyard was a building with bars on the windows and crows on the bars, and the torch-carrying citizens were standing in a half circle around the door of the building. More of V.F.D.'s citizens were arriving from every direction, and the three children could see a few crow-hatted members of the Council of Elders standing together and listening to something Mrs. Morrow was saying.

"It seems we arrived in the nick of time," Tails said. "We'd better scatter ourselves throughout the crowd. Sonic, you move to the far left. I'll take the far right."

"Roger!" Sonic said, and began crawling her way through the half circle of people.

"I think I'll just stay here," Jet said quietly, looking down at the ground, but the children had no time to argue with him. Amy began to walk straight down the middle of the crowd.

"Wait!" Amy called, moving with difficulty through the people. "Rule #2,493 clearly states that any person who is going to be burned at the stake has the opportunity to make a speech right before the fire is lit!"

"Yes!" Tails cried, from the right-hand side of the crowd. "Let Chocolate be heard!"

Officer Luciana stepped right in front of Tails, who almost bumped her head on the Chief's shiny helmet. Beneath the visor of the helmet Tails could see Luciana's lipsticked mouth rise in a very small smile. "It's too late for that," she said, and a few townspeople around her murmured in agreement. With a clunk! of one boot, she stepped aside and let Tails see what had happened. From the left-hand side of the crowd, Sonic crawled over the shoes of the person standing closest to the jail, and Amy peered over Mr. Lesko's shoulder to get a good look at what everyone was staring at. Chocolate was lying on the ground with his eyes closed, and two members of the Council of Elders were pulling a white sheet over him, as if they were tucking him in for a nap. But as dearly as I wish I could write that it was so, he was not sleeping. The Hedges had reached the uptown jail before the citizens of V.F.D could burn him at the stake, but they still had not arrived in the nick of time.

Chapter nine

There are very few people who enjoy delivering bad news, and I'm sorry to say that Mrs. Morrow was one of them. When she caught sight of the Hedge orphans gathered around Chocolate she rushed across the courtyard to tell them the details.

"Wait till the daily punctilio hears about this!" she said enthusiastically,

and pointed at Chocolate with a sleeve of her robe. "Before he could be burned at the stake Count Redman was murdered mysteriously in his jail cell."

"Count Eggman'," corrected Tails automatically.

"So you're finally admitting that you know who he is!" she cried triumphantly.

"We don't know who he is!" Amy insisted, picking up her baby brother, who was quietly beginning to cry. "We only know that he is an innocent man!"

Officer Luciana clunked forward, and the crowd of townspeople and Elders parted to let her walk right up to the children. "I don't think this is a matter for children to discuss," she said, and raised her white-gloved hands in the air to get the crowd's attention.

"Citizens of V.F.D.," she said grandly, "I locked Count Eggman in the uptown jail last night, and when I arrived here in the morning he had been killed. I have the only key to the jail, so his death is quite a mystery."

"A mystery!" Mrs. Morrow said excitedly, as the townspeople murmured behind her. "What a thrill, to be hearing about a mystery!"

"Shoart!" Sonic said tearfully. She meant something like "A dead man is not a thrill!" but only her siblings were listening to her.

"You will all be happy to know that the famous Detective Dupin has agreed to investigate this murder," Officer Luciana continued. "He is inside the uptown jail right now, examining the scene of the crime."

"The famous Detective Dupin!" Mr. Lesko said. "Just imagine!" "I've never heard of him," said a nearby Elder.

"Me neither," Mr. Lesko admitted, "but I'm sure he's very famous."

"What happened?" Tails asked, trying not to look at the white sheet on the ground. "How was Chocolate killed? Why wasn't anybody guarding him? How could someone have gotten into his cell if you locked it?"

Luciana turned around and faced Tails who could see her own astonished reflection in the policewoman's shiny helmet. "As I said before," Luciana said again, "I don't think this is a matter for children to discuss. Perhaps that hawk in overalls should take you children to a playground instead of a murder scene."

"Or downtown, to do the morning chores," another Elder said, his crow hat nodding. "Jet, take the orphans away."

"Not so fast," called a voice from the doorway of the uptown jail. It was a voice, I'm sorry to say, that the Hedge orphans recognized in an instant. The voice was wheezy, and scratchy, and it had a sinister smile to it, as if the person talking were telling a joke. But it was not a voice that made the children want to laugh at a punch line. It was a voice the children recognized from all of the places they had traveled since their parents had died, and a voice the children knew from all their most displeasing nightmares. It was the voice of Count Eggman.

The children's hearts sank, and they turned to see Eggman standing in the doorway of the jail, wearing another one of his absurd disguises. He was wearing a turquoise blazer that was so brightly colored that it made the Hedges squint, and a pair of silver pants decorated with tiny mirrors that glinted in the morning sun. A pair of enormous sunglasses covered the entire upper half of his face, hiding his one eyebrow and his shiny, shiny eyes. On his feet were a pair of bright green plastic shoes with yellow plastic lightning bolts sticking out of them, covering his ankle and hiding his tattoo. But most unpleasant of all was the fact that Eggman was wearing no shirt, only a thick gold chain with a detective's badge in the center of it. The Hedges could see his pale and hairy chest peeking out at them, and it added an extra layer of unpleasantness to their fear.

"It's just not cool," Count Eggman said, snapping his fingers to emphasize the word "cool", "to dismiss suspects from the scene of the crime until Detective Dupin gives the O.K."

"But surely the orphans aren't suspects " one of the Elders said. "They're only children after all."

"It's just not cool," Count Eggman said, snapping his fingers again, "to disagree with Detective Dupin."

"I agree," Officer Luciana said, and gave Eggman a big lipstick smile as he stepped through the doorway. "Now let's get down to business, Dupin. Do you have any important information?"

"We have some important information," Amy said boldly. "This man is not Detective Dupin." There were a few gasps from the crowd. "He's Count Eggman."

"You mean Count Redman," Mrs. Morrow said.

"We mean Eggman," Tails said, and then turned so that she was looking Count Eggman right in the sunglasses. "Those sunglasses may be hiding your eyebrow, and those shoes may be hiding your tattoo, but you can't hide your identity. You're Count Eggman, and you've kidnapped the Quagmire triplets and murdered Chocolate ."

"Who in the world is Chocolate ?" asked an Elder. "I'm confused."

"It's not cool," Eggman said with a snap, "to be confused, so let me see if I can help you." He pointed at himself with a flourish. "I am the famous Detective Dupin. I am wearing these plastic shoes and sunglasses because they're cool. Count Eggman is the name of the man who was murdered last night, and these three children . . ." — here Eggman paused to make sure everyone was listening — "are responsible for the crime."

"Don't be ridiculous, Eggman," Amy said disgustedly.

Eggman smiled nastily at all three Hedges. "You are making a mistake when you call me Count Eggman," he said, "and if you continue to call me that, you will see exactly how big a mistake you are making." Detective Dupin turned and looked up to address the crowd. "Of course the biggest mistake these children have made is thinking they can get away with murder."

There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd. "I never trusted those kids," Mrs.

Morrow said. "They didn't do a very good job when they trimmed my hedges."

"Show them the evidence," Officer Luciana said, and Detective Dupin snapped his fingers.

"It's not cool," he said, "to accuse people of murder without any evidence, but luckily I found some." He reached into the pocket of his blazer and brought out a long pink ribbon decorated with plastic daisies. "I found this right outside Count Eggman's jail cell," he said. "It's a ribbon — the exact kind of ribbon that Tails Hedge uses to tie up his bangs."

The townspeople gasped, and Tails turned to see that the citizens of V.F.D. were looking at him with suspicion and fear, which are not pleasant ways to be looked at.

"That's not my ribbon!" Tails cried, taking his own hair ribbon of her pocket. "My hair ribbon is right here!"

"How can we tell?" an Elder asked with a frown. "All hair ribbons look alike."

"They don't look alike!" Amy said. "The one found at the murder scene is fancy and pink.

My brother prefers plain ribbons, and he hates the color pink!"

"And inside the cell," Detective Dupin continued, as if Amy had not spoken, "I found this." He held up a small circle made of glass. "This is one of the lenses in Amy's glasses."

"But my glasses aren't missing any lenses!" Amy cried, as everyone turned to look at her in suspicion and fear. She took his glasses off and showed them to the crowd. "You can see for yourself."

"Just because you have replaced your ribbon and your lenses," Officer Luciana said, "doesn't mean you're not murderers."

"Actually, they're not murderers," Detective Dupin said. "They're accomplices." He leaned forward so he was right in the Hedges' faces, and the children could smell his sour breath as he continued talking. "You orphans are not smart enough to know what the word 'accomplice' means, but it means 'helper of murderers.'"

"We know what the word 'accomplice' means," Amy said. "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about the four toothmarks on Count Eggman's body," Detective Dupin said, with

a snap of his fingers. "There's only one person uncool enough to bite people to death, and that's Sonic Hedge."

"It's true that hIS teeth are sharp," another member of the Council said. "I noticed that when he served my hot fudge sundae."

"Our brother didn't bite anyone to death," Tails said indignantly, a word which here means "in defense of an innocent baby." "Detective Dupin is lying!"

"It's not cool to accuse me of lying," Dupin replied. "Instead of accusing other people of things, why don't you three children tell us where you were last night?"

"We were at Jet's house," Amy said. "He'll tell you himself." The middle Hedge stood up on tiptoe and called out over the crowd. "Jet! Tell everyone that we were with you!"

The citizens looked this way and that, the crow hats of the Elders bobbing as they listened for a word from Jet. But no word came. The three children waited for a moment in the tense silence, thinking that surely Jet would overcome his skittishness in order to save them. But the handyman was quiet. The only sounds the children could hear was the splashing of Fowl Fountain and the muttering of the roosting crows.

"Jet sometimes gets skittish in front of crowds," Tails explained, "but it's true. I spent the night working in his studio, and Amy was reading in the secret library, and —"

"Enough nonsense!" Officer Luciana said "Do you really expect us to believe that our fine handyman is building mechanical devices and has a secret library? Next I suppose you'll say that he's building things out of feathers!"

"It's bad enough that you killed Count Eggman," an Elder said, "but now you're trying to frame Jet for other crimes! I say that V.F.D. no longer serve as guardian for such terrible orphans!"

"Hear, hear!" cried several voices scattered in the crowd, just as the children had planned to do themselves.

"I will send a message to Mr. Silver Poe right away," the Elder continued, "and the banker will come and remove them in a few days."

"A few days is too long to wait!" Mrs. Morrow said, and several citizens cheered in agreement. "These children need to be taken care of as quickly as possible."

"I say that we burn them at the stake!" cried Mr. Lesko, who stepped forward to wag his finger at the children. "Rule #201 clearly says no murdering!"

"But we didn't murder anyone!" Tails cried. "A ribbon, a lens, and some bite marks aren't enough evidence to accuse someone of murder!"

"It's enough evidence for me!" an Elder cried. "We already have the torches — let's burn them right now!"

"Hold on a moment," another Elder said. "We can't simply burn people at the stake whenever we want!" The Hedges looked at one another, relieved that one citizen seemed immune to mob psychology. "I have a very important appointment in ten minutes," the Elder continued. "So it's too late to do it now. How about tonight, after dinner?"

"That's no good," said another member of the Council. "I'm having a dinner party then.

How about tomorrow afternoon?"

"Yes," someone said from the crowd. "Right after lunch! That's a perfect time!" "Hear, hear!" Mr. Lesko cried.

"Hear, hear!" Mrs. Morrow cried. "Glaji!" Sonic cried.

"Jet, help us!" Tails called. "Please tell these people that we're not murderers!"

"I told you before," Detective Dupin said, smiling beneath his sunglasses. "Only Sonic is a murderer. You two are accomplices, and I will put you all in jail where you belong."

Dupin grabbed Tails's and Amy's wrists with one scraggly hand, and leaned down to scoop up Sonic with the other. "See you tomorrow afternoon for the burning at the stake!" he called out to the rest of the crowd, and dragged the struggling Hedges through the door of the uptown jail. The children stumbled into a dim, grim hallway, listening to the faint sounds of the mob cheering as the door slammed behind them.

"I'm putting you in the Deluxe Cell," Dupin said. "It's the dirtiest one." He marched them down a dark hallway with many twists and turns, and the Hedges could see rows and rows of cells with their heavy doors hanging open. The only light in the jail came from tiny barred windows placed in each cell, but the children saw that every cell was empty and each one looked dirtier than the rest.

"You'll be the one in jail before long, Eggman," Amy said, hoping she sounded much more certain than he felt. "You'll never get away with this."

"My name is Detective Dupin," said Detective Dupin, "and my only concern is bringing you three criminals to justice."

"But if you burn us at the stake," Tails said quickly, "you'll never get your hands on the Hedge fortune."

Dupin rounded the last corner of the hallway, and pushed the Hedges into a small damp cell with only a small wooden bench as furniture. By the light of the barred window the siblings could see that the cell was quite filthy, as Dupin had promised. The detective reached out to pull the door closed, but with his sunglasses on it was too dark to see the door handle, so he had to throw off all pretense — a phrase which here means "take off part of his disguise for a moment" — and remove his sunglasses. As much as the children hated Dupin's ridiculous disguise, it was worse to see their enemy's one eyebrow, and the shiny, shiny eyes that had been haunting them for so long.

"Don't worry," he said in his wheezy voice. "You won't be burned at the stake — not all of you, at least. Tomorrow afternoon, one of you will make a miraculous escape — if you consider being smuggled out of V.F.D. by one of my assistants to be an escape. The other two will burn at the stake as planned. You bratty orphans are too stupid to realize it, but a genius like me knows that it may take a village to raise a child, but it only takes one child to inherit a fortune." The villain laughed a loud and rude laugh, and began to shut the door of the cell. "But I don't want to be cruel," he said, smiling to indicate that he really wanted to be as cruel as possible. "I'll let you three decide who gets the honor of spending the rest of their puny life with me, and who gets to burn at the stake. I'll be back at lunchtime for your decision."

The Hedge orphans listened to the wheezy giggle of their enemy as he slammed the cell door and walked back down the hallway in his plastic shoes, and felt a sinking feeling in their stomachs, where the huevos rancheros Jet had made for them last night were still being digested. When something is being digested, of course, it is getting smaller and smaller as the body uses up all of the nutrients inside the food, but it didn't feel that way to the three children. The youngsters did not feel as if the small potatoes they had eaten for dinner were getting smaller. The Hedge orphans huddled together in the dim light and listened to the laughter echo against the walls of the uptown jail, and wondered just how large the potatoes of their lives would grow.

Chapter 10

 _Entertaining_ a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you. But if you refuse to entertain a notion — which is just a fancy way of saying that you refuse to think about a certain idea — you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some bloodthirsty animals, or some parents who are upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself, particularly if the idea comes from a sinister villain.

"I don't care what that horrible man says," Tails said to his siblings as Detective Dupin's plastic footsteps faded away. "We're not going to choose which one of us will escape and who will be left to burn at the stake. I absolutely refuse to entertain the notion."

"But what are we going to do?" Amy asked. "Try to contact Mr. Silver Poe?"

"Mr. Silver Poe won't help us," Tails replied. "He'll think we're ruining the reputation of his bank. We're going to escape."

"Frulk!" Sonic said.

"I know it's a jail cell," Tails said, "but there must be some way to get out." he pulled her ribbon out of her pocket and tied up his bangs, his fingers shaking as he did so. The eldest Hedge had spoken confidently, but he did not feel as confident as he sounded. A cell is

built for the specific purpose of keeping people inside, and she was not sure she could make an invention that could get the Hedges out of the uptown jail. But once her hair was out of her eyes, her inventing brain began to work at full force, and Tails took a good look around the cell for ideas. First he looked at the door of the cell, examining every inch of it.

"Do you think you could make another lockpick?" Amy asked hopefully. "You made an excellent one when we lived with Uncle Monty."

"Not this time," Tails replied. "The door locks from the outside, so a lockpick would be of no use." he closed her eyes for a moment in thought, and then looked up at the tiny barred window. His siblings followed his gaze, a phrase which here means "also looked at the window and tried to think of something helpful."

"Boiklio?" Sonic asked, which meant "Do you think you could make some more welding torches, to melt the bars? You made some excel lent ones when we lived with the Squalors."

"Not this time," Tails said. "If I stood on the bench and Amy stood on my shoulders and you stood on Amy's shoulders, we could probably reach the window, but even if we melted the bars, the window isn't big enough to crawl through, even for Sonic."

"Sonic could call out the window," Amy said, "and try to attract the attention of someone to come and save us."

"Thanks to mob psychology, every citizen of V.F.D. thinks that we're criminals," Tails pointed out. "No one is going to come rescue an accused murderer and her accomplices." he closed his eyes and thought again, and then knelt down to get a closer look at the wooden bench.

"Rats," he said.

Amy jumped slightly. "Where?" she said.

"I don't mean there are rats in the cell," he said, hoping that she was speaking the truth. "I just mean 'Rats!' I was hoping that the bench would be made of wooden boards held together with screws or nails. Screws and nails are always handy for inventions. But it's just a solid, carved niece of wood, which isn't handy at all." Tails sat down on the solid, carved piece of wood and sighed. "I don't know what I can do," he admitted.

Amy and Sonic looked at one another nervously. "I'm sure you'll think of something," Amy said.

"Maybe you'll think of something," Tails replied, looking at his sister. "There must be something you've read that could help us."

It was Amy's turn to close his eyes in thought. "If you tilted the bench," he said, after a pause, "it would become a ramp. The ancient Egyptians used ramps to build the pyramids."

"But we're not trying to build a pyramid!" Tails cried in exasperation. "We're trying to escape from jail!"

"I'm just trying to be helpful!" Amy cried. "If it weren't for you and your silly bang ribbons we wouldn't have been arrested in the first place!"

"And if it weren't for your ridiculous glasses," Tails snapped in reply, "we wouldn't be here in this jail!"

"Stop!" Sonic shrieked.

Tails and Amy glared angrily at one another for a moment, and then sighed. Tails moved over on the bench to make room for his siblings.

"Come and sit down," he said gloomily. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Amy. Of course it's not your fault that we're here."

"It's not yours, either," Amy said. "I'm just frustrated. Only a few hours ago we thought we'd be able to find the Quagmires and save Chocolate ."

"But we were too late to save Chocolate ," Tails said, shuddering. "I don't know who he was, or how he got his tattoo, but I know he wasn't Count Eggman."

"Maybe he used to work with Count Eggman," Amy said. "He said the tattoo was from his job. Do you think Chocolate was in Eggman's theater troupe?"

"I don't think so," Tails said. "None of Eggman's associates have that same tattoo. If only Chocolate were alive, he could solve the mystery."

"Pereg," Sonic said, which meant "And if only the Quagmires were here, they could solve the other mystery — the meaning of the real V.F.D."

"What we need," Amy said, "is deus ex machina." "Who's that?" Tails said.

"It's not a who," Amy said, "it's a what. 'Deus ex machina' is a Latin term that means 'the god from the machine.' It means the arrival of something helpful when you least expect it. We need to rescue two triplets from the clutches of a villain, and solve the sinister mystery surrounding us, but we're trapped in the filthiest cell of the uptown jail, and tomorrow afternoon we're supposed to be burned at the stake. It would be a wonderful time for something helpful to arrive unexpectedly."

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and the sound of the lock unlatching. The heavy door of the Deluxe Cell creaked open and there stood Officer Luciana, scowling at them from beneath the visor of her helmet and holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. "If it were up to me, I wouldn't be doing this," she said, "but Rule #147 clearly states that all prisoners receive bread and water, so here you go." The Chief of Police thrust the loaf and the pitcher into Tails' hands and slammed the door shut, locking it behind her. Tails stared at the loaf of bread, which looked spongy and unappetizing, and at the water pitcher, which was painted a hideous shade of green decorated with a painting of seven crows flying in a circle. "Well, at least we have some nourishment," he said. "Our brains need food and water to work properly."

he handed the pitcher to Sonic and the loaf to Amy, who looked at the bread for a long, long time. Then, she turned to her brothers, who could see that his eyes were filling up with tears.

"I just remembered," she said, in a quiet, sad voice. "It's my birthday. I'm thirteen today." Tails put his hand on his sister's shoulder. "Oh, Amy," he said. "It is your birthday.

We forgot all about it."

"I forgot all about it myself, until this very moment," Amy said, looking back at the loaf of bread. "Something about this bread made me remember my twelfth birthday, when our parents made that bread pudding."

Tails put the pitcher of water down on the floor, and sat beside Amy. "I remember," he said, smiling. "That was the worst dessert we ever tasted."

"Vom," Sonic agreed.

"It was a new recipe that they were trying out," Amy said. "They wanted it to be special for my birthday, but it was burned and sour and soggy. And they promised that the next year, for my thirteenth birthday, I'd have the best birthday meal in the world."

She looked at her siblings, and had to take her glasses off to wipe away her tears. "I don't mean to sound spoiled," she said, "but I was hoping for a better birthday meal than bread and water in the Deluxe Cell of the uptown jail in the Village of Fowl Devotees."

"Chift," Sonic said, biting Amy's hand gently.

Tails hugged him, and felt her own eyes fill up with tears as well. "Sonic's right, Amy.

You don't sound spoiled."

The Hedges sat together for a moment and cried quietly, entertaining the notion of how dreadful their lives had become in such a short time. Amy's twelfth birthday did not seem like such a long time ago, and yet their memories of the lousy bread pudding seemed as faint and blurry as their first sight of V.F.D. on the horizon. It was a curious feeling, that something could be so close and so distant at the same time, and the children wept for their mother and their father and all of the happy things in their life that had been taken away from them since that terrible day at the beach.

Finally, the children cried themselves out, and Tails wiped his eyes and struggled to give his sister a smile. "Amy," he said, "Sonic and I are prepared to offer you the birthday gift of your choice. Anything at all that you want in the Deluxe Cell, you can have."

"Thanks a lot," Amy said, smiling as he looked around the filthy room. "What I'd really like is deus ex machina."

"Me, too," Tails agreed, and took the pitcher of water from his sister to drink from it. Before he even took a sip, however, he looked up, and stared at the far end of the cell. Putting down the pitcher, he quickly walked to the wall and rubbed some dirt away to see

what the wall was made of. Then looked at his siblings and began to smile. "Happy birthday, Amy," he said. "Officer Luciana brought us deus ex machina."

"She didn't bring us a god in a machine " Amy said. "She brought water in a pitcher." "Brioche!" Sonic said, which meant "And bread!"

"They're the closest thing to a god in a machine that we're going to get," Tails said. "Now get up, both of you. We need the bench- it'll be handy after all. It's going to work as a ramp, just as Amy said."

Tails placed the loaf of bread up against the wall, directly under the barred window, and then tilted the bench toward the same spot. "We're going to pour the pitcher of water so it runs down the bench, and hits the wall," he said. "Then it'll run down the wall to the bread, which will act like a sponge and soak up the water. Then we'll squeeze the bread so the water goes into the pitcher, and start over."

"But what will that do?" Amy asked.

"The walls of this cell are made of bricks," Tails said, "with mortar between the bricks to keep them together. Mortar is a type of clay that hardens like glue, so a mortar dissolver would loosen the bricks and allow us to escape. I think we can dissolve the mortar by pouring water on it."

"But how?" Amy asked. "The walls are so solid, and water is so gentle."

"Water is one of the most powerful forces on earth," Tails replied. "Ocean waves can wear away at cliffs made of stone."

"Donax!" Sonic said, which meant something like, "But that takes years and years, and if we don't escape, we'll be burned at the stake tomorrow afternoon."

"Yes, your right Sonic. It might take years!" Amy commented

"Then we'd better stop entertaining the notion, and start pouring the water," Tails said. "We'll have to keep it up all night if we want to dissolve the mortar. I'll stand at this end, propping up the bench. Amy, you stand next to me and pour the water. Sonic, you stand near the bread, and bring it back to me when it's soaked up all the water. Ready?"

Amy took the pitcher in his hands and held it up to the end of the bench. Sonic crawled over to the loaf of bread, which was only a little bit shorter than he was.

"Ready!" the two younger Hedges said in unison, and together the three children Began to operate Tails' mortar-dissolver. The water ran down the bench and hit the wall, and then ran down the wall and was soaked up in the spongy bread. Sonic quickly brought the bread to Amy, who squeezed it into the pitcher, and the entire process began again. At first, it seemed as if the Hedges were barking up the wrong tree, because the water seemed to have no more effect against the wall of the Deluxe Cell than a silk scarf would have against a charging rhinoceros, but it soon became clear that water — unlike a silk scarf

— is indeed one of the most powerful forces on earth. By the time the Hedges heard the flapping of the V.F.D. crows as they flew in a circle before heading downtown for their afternoon roost, the mortar between the bricks was slightly mushy to the touch, and by the

time the last few rays of the sun were shining through the tiny barred window, quite a bit of the mortar had actually begun to wear away.

"Grespo," Sonic said, which meant something like, "Quite a bit of the mortar has actually begun to wear away."

"That's good news," Amy said. "If your invention saves our lives, Tails, it will be the best birthday present you've ever given me, including that book of Finnish poetry you bought me when I turned nine."

Tails yawned. "Speaking of poetry, why don't we talk about Sonia Quagmire's couplets? We still haven't figured out where the triplets are hidden, and besides, if we keep talking it'll be easier to stay awake."

"Good idea," Amy said, and recited the poems from memory: "For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear.

Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak. The first thing you read contains the clue: An initial way to speak to you. "

The Hedges listened to the poems and began to entertain every notion they could think of that might help them figure out what the couplets meant. Tails held the bench in place, but his mind was on why the first poem began "For sapphires we are held in here," when the Hedges already knew about the Quagmire fortune. Amy poured the water out of the pitcher and let it run down to the wall, but her mind was on the part of the poem that said "The first thing you read contains the clue," and what exactly Sonia meant by "the clue." Sonic monitored the loaf of bread as it soaked up the water again and again, but his mind was on the last line of the last poem they had received, and what "An initial way to speak to you" could mean. The three Hedges operated Tails' invention until morning, discussing Sonia's couplets the entire time, and although the children made quite a lot of progress dissolving the mortar in the cell wall, they made no progress figuring out Sonia's poems.

"Water might be one of the most powerful forces on earth," Tails said, as the children heard the first sounds of the V.F.D. crows arriving for their uptown roost, "but poetry might be the most confusing. We've talked and talked, and we still don't know where the Quagmires are hiding."

"We need another dose of deus ex machina " Amy said. "If something helpful doesn't arrive soon, we won't be able to rescue our friends even if we do escape from this cell."

"Psst!" came an unexpected voice from the window, startling the children so much that they almost dropped everything and wrecked the mortar-dissolver. The Hedges looked up and saw the faint shape of somebody's face behind the bars of the window.

"Psst! Hedges!" the voice whispered.

"Who is it?" Tails whispered back. "We can't see you."

"It's Jet," Jet whispered. "I'm supposed to be downtown doing the morning chores, but I sneaked over here instead."

"Can you get us out of here?" Amy whispered.

For a few seconds, the children heard nothing but the sounds of the V.F.D. crows muttering and splashing in Fowl Fountain. Then Jet sighed. "No," he admitted. "Officer Luciana has the only key, and this jail is made of solid brick. I don't think there's a way I can get you out."

"Dala?" Sonic asked.

"My sister means, did you tell the Council of Elders that we were with you the night Chocolate was murdered, so we couldn't have committed the crime?"

There was another pause. "No," Jet said. "You know that the Council makes me too skittish to talk. I wanted to speak up for you when Detective Dupin was accusing you, but one look at those crow hats and I couldn't open my mouth. But I thought of one thing I can do to help."

Amy put down the pitcher of water and felt the mortar on the far wall. Tails's invention seemed to be working quite well, but there was still no guarantee that it would get them out of there before the mob of citizens arrived in the afternoon. "What's that?" he asked Jet.

"I'm going to get the self-sustaining hot air mobile home ready to go," he said. "I'll wait at the barn all afternoon, and if you somehow manage to escape, you can float away with me "

"O.K.," Tails said, although he had been hoping for something a little more helpful from a fully grown adult. "We're trying to break out of this cell right now, so maybe we'll make it."

"Well, if you're breaking out now, I'd better go," Jet said. "I don't want to get in trouble. I just want to say that if you don't make it and you are burned at the stake, it was very nice making your acquaintance. Oh — I almost forgot."

Jet's fingers reached through the bars and dropped a rolled scrap of paper down to the waiting Hedges. "It's another couplet," he said. "It doesn't make sense to me, but maybe you'll find it helpful. Good-bye, children. I do hope I see you later."

"Good-bye, Jet," Tails said glumly. "I hope so too." '"Bye," Sonic muttered.

Jet waited for a second, expecting Amy say good-bye, but then walked off without another word, his footsteps fading into the sounds of the muttering, splashing crows. Tails and Sonic turned to look at their sister, surprised that she had not said goodbye, although Jet's visit had been such a disappointment that they could understand if Amy was too annoyed to be polite. But when they looked at the middle Hedge, he did not look annoyed. Amy was looking at the latest couplet from Sonia, and in the growing light of the Deluxe Cell her brother could see a wide grin on her face. Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don't

care for spill orange soda all over himself. But there weren't any books in the uptown jail, and the Hedges had been careful not to spill a drop of the water as they operated the mortar- dissolver, so the Hedge brothers knew that their sister was grinning for another reason.

She was grinning because she was entertaining a notion, and as Amy showed them the poem she was holding, Tails and Sonic had a very good idea of what notion it was.

Chapter 11

 _Inside these letters, the eye will see_

 _Nearby are your friends and V.F.D_

"Isn't it marvelous?" Amy said with a grin. As her brothers read the fourth couplet.

"Isn't it absolutely superlative?"

"Wibedon" Sonic said, which meant. "It's more confusing than superlative, and we still have no idea where Sonia and Manic is"

"Yes we do" Amy said tacking out the other couplets out of her pocket "Think about all four poems in order, and you'll see what I mean."

For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear. Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak. The first thing you read contains the clue: An initial way to speak to you. Inside these letters the eye will see Nearby are your friends, and V.F.D.

"I think you're much better at analyzing poetry than I am," Tails said, and Sonic nodded in agreement. "This poem doesn't make it any clearer."

"But you're the one who first suggested the solution," Amy said. "When we received the third poem, you thought that 'initial' meant 'initials,' like V.F.D."

"But you said that it probably meant 'first,'" Tails said. "The poems are the first way the Quagmires can speak to us from where they are hidden."

"I was wrong," Amy admitted. "I've never been so happy to be wrong in my life. Sonia meant 'initials' all along. I didn't realize it until I read the part that said 'Inside these letters the eye will see.' She's hiding the location inside the poem, like Aunt Sticks hid her location inside her note, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Tails said, "but I still don't understand."

"The first thing you read contains the clue,'" Amy recited. "We thought that Sonia meant the first poem. But she meant the first letter. She couldn't tell us directly where she and her brother were hidden, in case someone else got the poems from the crows before we did, so she had to use a sort of code. If we look at the first letter of each line, and we can see the triplets' location."

"'For sapphires we are held in here.' That's F," Tails said. '"Only you can end our fear' That's O."

"'Until dawn comes we cannot speak,'" Amy said. "That's U. 'No words can come from this sad beak.' That's N."

"'The first thing you read contains the clue' — T," Tails said excitedly. "'An initial way to speak to you' — A."

"I! N!" Sonic cried triumphantly, and the three Hedges cried out the solution together: "FOUNTAIN!"

"Fowl Fountain!" Amy said. "The Quagmires are right outside that window."

"But how can they be in the fountain?" Tails asked. "And how could Sonia give her poems to the V.F.D. crows?"

"We'll answer those questions," Amy replied, "as soon as we get out of jail. We'd better get back to the mortar-dissolver before Detective Dupin comes back."

"Along with a whole town of people who want to burn us at the stake, thanks to mob psychology," Tails said with a shudder.

Sonic crawled over to the loaf of bread and placed her tiny hand against the wall. "Mush!" she cried, which meant something like, "The mortar is almost dissolved — just a little bit longer!"

Tails took the ribbon out of his bangs and then retied it, which was something he did when he needed to rethink, a word which here means "Think even harder about the Hedge orphans' terrible situation." "I'm not sure we have even a little bit longer," he said, looking up at the window. "Look at how bright the sunlight is. The morning must be almost over."

"Then we should hurry," Amy said.

"No," Tails corrected. "We should rethink. And I've been rethinking this bench. We can use it in another way, besides as a ramp. We can use it as a battering ram."

"Honz?" Sonic asked.

"A battering ram is a large piece of wood or metal used to break down doors or walls " Tails explained. "Military inventors used it in medieval times to break into walled cities, and we're going to use it now, to break out of jail." Tails picked up the bench so it was resting on her shoulder. "The bench should be pointing as evenly as possible," he said. "Sonic, get on Amy's shoulders. If the two of you hold the other end together, I think this battering ram will work."

Amy and Sonic scrambled into the position Tails had suggested, and in a moment the siblings were ready to operate Tails' latest invention. The two Hedge brothers had a firm hold on the wood, and Amy had a firm hold on Sonic so he wouldn't fall to the floor of the Deluxe Cell as they battered.

"Now," Tails said, "let's step back as far as we can, and at the count of three, run quickly toward the wall. Aim the battering ram for the spot where the mortar-dissolver was working. Ready? One, two, three!"

Thunk! The Hedges ran forward and smacked the bench against the wall as hard as they could. The battering ram made a noise so loud that it felt as if the entire jail would collapse, but they left only a small dent in a few of the bricks, as if the wall had been bruised slightly. "Again!" Tails commanded. "One, two, three!"

Thunk! Outside the children could hear a few crows flutter wildly, frightened by the noise. A few more bricks were bruised, and one had a long crack down the middle. "It's working!" Amy cried. "The battering ram is working!"

"One, two, minga!" Sonic shrieked, and the children smacked the battering ram against the wall again.

"Ow!" Amy cried, and stumbled a little bit, almost dropping her baby brother. "A brick fell on my toe!"

"Hooray!" Tails cried. "I mean, sorry about your toe, Amy, but if bricks are falling it means the wall is definitely weakening. Let's put down the battering ram and get a better look."

"We don't need a better look," Amy said. "We'll know it's working when we see Fowl Fountain. One, two, three!"

Thunk! The Hedges heard the sound of more pieces of brick hitting the filthy floor of the Deluxe Cell. But they also heard another sound — a familiar one. It began with a faint rustling, and then grew and grew until it sounded like a million pages were being flipped. It was the sound of the V.F.D. crows, flying in circles before departing for their afternoon roost, and it meant that the children were running out of time.

"Hurol!" Sonic cried desperately, and then, as loudly as he could, "One! Two! Minga !"

At the count of "Minga!" which of course meant something along the lines of "Three!" the children raced toward the wall of the Deluxe Cell and smacked their battering ram against the bricks with the mightiest Thunk! yet, a noise that was accompanied by an enormous cracking sound as the invention snapped in two. Tails staggered in one direction, and Amy and Sonic staggered in another, as each separate half made them lose their balance, and a huge cloud of dust sprang from the point where the battering ram had hit the wall.

A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty- fifth in a beauty pageant. Nevertheless, as the Hedge orphans stumbled around the cell, dropping each half of the battering ram and listening to the sound of the crows flying in circles outside, they stared at the huge cloud of dust as if it were a thing of great beauty, because this particular huge dust cloud was made of pieces of brick and mortar and other building materials that are needed to build a wall, and the Hedges knew that they were seeing it because Tails' invention had worked. As the huge cloud of dust settled on the cell floor, making it even dirtier, the children gazed around them with big dusty grins on their faces, because they saw an additional beautiful sight — a big, gaping hole in the wall of the Deluxe Cell, perfect for a speedy escape.

"We did it!" Tails said, and stepped through the hole in the cell into the courtyard. he looked up at the sky just in time to see the last few crows departing for the downtown district. "We escaped!"

Amy, still holding Sonic on his shoulders, paused to wipe the dust off his glasses before stepping out of the cell and walking past Tails Fowl Fountain. "We're not out of the woods yet," she said, using a phrase which here means "There's still plenty of trouble on the horizon." She looked up at the sky and pointed to the distant blur of the departing crows. "The crows are heading downtown for their afternoon roost. The townspeople should arrive any minute now."

"But how can we get the Quagmires out any minute now?" Tails asked.

"Wock!" Sonic cried from Amy's shoulders. he meant something like, "The fountain looks as solid as can be," and his siblings nodded in disappointed agreement. Fowl Fountain looked as impenetrable — a word which here means "impossible to break into and rescue kidnapped triplets" — as it did ugly. The metal crow sat and spat water all over itself as if the idea of the Hedges rescuing the Quagmires made it sick to its stomach.

"Manic and Sonia must be trapped inside the fountain," Amy said. "Perhaps there's a mechanism someplace that opens up a secret entrance."

"But we cleaned every inch of this fountain for our afternoon chores," Tails said. "We would have noticed a secret mechanism while we were scrubbing all those carved feathers."

"Jidu!" Sonic said, which meant something like, "Surely Sonia has given us a hint about how to rescue her!"

Amy put down her baby brother, and took the four scraps of paper out of his pocket. "It's time to rethink again," she said, spreading out the couplets on the ground. "We need to examine these poems as closely as we can. There must be another clue about getting into the fountain."

For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear.

Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak. The first thing you read contains the clue: An initial way to speak to you.

Inside these letters the eye will see Nearby are your friends, and V.F.D.

"'This sad beak'!" Tails exclaimed. "We jumped to the conclusion that she meant the

V.F.D. crows, but maybe she means Fowl Fountain. The water comes out of the crow's beak, so there must be a hole there."

"We'd better climb up and see," Amy said. "Here, Sonic, get on my shoulders again, and then I'll get on Tails's shoulders. We're going to have to be very tall to reach all the way up there."

Tails nodded, and knelt at the base of the fountain. Amy put Sonic back on his shoulders, and then got on the shoulders of his older sister, and then carefully, carefully, Tails stood up, so all three Hedges were balancing on top of one another like a troupe of acrobats the children had seen once when their parents had taken them to the circus. The key difference, however, is that acrobats rehearse their routines over and over, in rooms with safety nets and plenty of cushions so that when they make a mistake they will not injure themselves, but the Hedge orphans had no time to rehearse, or to find cushions to lay out on V.F.D.'s streets. As a result, the Hedge balancing act was a wobbly one. Tails wobbled from holding up both his siblings, and Amy wobbled from standing on her wobbling brother, and poor Sonic was wobbling so much that he was just barely able to sit up on Amy's shoulder and peer into the beak of the gargling metal crow. Tails looked down the street, to watch for any arriving townspeople, and Amy gazed down at the ground, where Sonia's poems were still spread out.

"What do you see, Sonic?" asked Tails, who had spotted a few very distant figures walking quickly toward the fountain.

"Shize!" Sonic called down.

"Amy, the beak isn't big enough to get inside the fountain," Tails said desperately. The streets of the town appeared to be shaking up and down as she wobbled more and more.

"What can we do?"

"'Inside these letters the eye will see,'" Amy muttered to herself, as she often did when she was thinking hard about something she was reading. It took all of his concentration to read the couplets Sonia had sent them while he was teetering back and forth. "That's a strange way to put it. Why didn't she write 'Inside these letters I hope you'll see,' or 'Inside these letters you just might see'?"

"Sabisho!" Sonic cried. From the top of her two wobbling siblings, Sonic was waving back and forth like a flower in the breeze. He tried to hang on to Fowl Fountain, but the water rushing out of the crow's beak made the metal too slippery.

Tails tried as hard as he could to steady herself, but the sight of two figures wearing crow-shaped hats coming around a nearby corner did not help her find her balance

"Amy," she said, "I don't mean to rush you, but please rethink as quickly as you can. The citizens are approaching, and I'm not sure how much longer I can hang on."

"'Inside these letters the eye will see,'" Amy muttered again, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the world wobbling around him.

"Took!" Sonic shrieked, but no one heard him over Tails's scream as his legs gave out, a phrase which here means that he toppled to the ground, skinning his knee and dropping Amy in the process. Amy's glasses dropped off, and she fell to the ground of the courtyard elbows first, which is a painful way to fall, and as she rolled on the ground both of her elbows received nasty scrapes. But Amy was far more concerned about her hands, which were no longer clasping the feet of her baby brother. "Sonic!" he called, squinting without her glasses. "Sonic, where are you?"

"Heni!" Sonic screamed, but it was even more difficult than usual to understand what he meant. The youngest Hedge had managed to cling to the beak of the crow with his teeth, but as the fountain kept spitting out water, his mouth began to slip off the slick metal surface. "Heni!" he screamed again, as one of his upper teeth started to slip. Sonic began to slide down, down, scrambling desperately to find something to hang on to, but the only other feature carved into the head was the staring eye of the crow, which was flat and provided no sort of toothhold. he slipped down farther, farther, and Sonic closed his eyes rather than watch himself fall.

"Heni!" he screamed one last time, gnashing his teeth against the eye in frustration, and as he bit the eye, it depressed. "Depressed" is a word that often describes someone who is feeling sad and gloomy, but in this case it describes a secret button, hidden in a crow statue, that is feeling just fine, thank you. With a great creaking noise, the button depressed and the

beak of Fowl Fountain opened as wide as it could, each part of the beak flipping slowly down and bringing Sonic down with it. Amy found her glasses and put them on just in time to see her little brother drop safely into Tails' outstretched arms The three Hedges looked at one another with relief, and then looked at the widening beak of the crow. Through the rushing water, the three siblings could see two pairs of hands appear on the beak as two people climbed out of Fowl Fountain. Each person was wearing a thick wool sweater, so dark and heavy with water that they both looked like huge, misshapen monsters. The two dripping figures climbed carefully out of the crow and lowered themselves to the ground, and the Hedges ran to clasp them in their arms.

I do not have to tell you how overjoyed the children were to see Manic and Sonia Quagmire shivering in the courtyard, and I do not have to tell you how grateful the Quagmires were to be out of the confines of Fowl Fountain. I do not have to tell you how happy and relieved the five youngsters were to be reunited after all this time, and I do not have to tell you all the joyous things the triplets said as they struggled to take off their heavy sweaters and wring them out. But there are things I do have to tell you, and one of those things is the distant figure of Detective Dupin, holding a torch and heading straight toward the Hedge orphans.

Chapter 12

 _If_ you have reached this far in the story, you must stop now. If you take one step back and look at the book you are reading, you can see how little of this miserable story there is to go, but if you could know how much grief and woe are contained in these last few pages, you would take another step back, and then another, and keep stepping back until The Vile Village was just as small and distant as the approaching figure of Detective Dupin was as the Hedge orphans embraced their friends in relief and joy. The Hedge orphans, I'm sorry to say, could not stop now, and there is no way for me to travel backward in time and warn the Hedges that the relief and joy they were experiencing at Fowl Fountain were the last bits of relief and joy they would experience for a very long time. But I can warn you. You, unlike the Hedge orphans and the Quagmire triplets and me and my dear departed Cream, can stop this wretched story at this very moment, and see what happens at the end of The Littlest Elf instead.

"We can't stay here," Tails warned. "I don't mean to cut short this reunion, but it's already afternoon, and Detective Dupin is coming down that street."

The five children looked in the direction Tails was pointing, and could see the turquoise speck of Dupin's approaching blazer, and the tiny point of light his flaming torch made as he drew near the courtyard.

"Do you think he sees us?" Amy asked.

"I don't know," Tails said, "but let's not stick around to find out. The V.F.D. mob will only get worse when they discover we've broken out of jail."

"Detective Dupin is the latest disguise of Count Eggman," Amy explained to the Quagmires, "and — "

"We know all about Detective Dupin," Manic said quickly, "and we know what's happened to you."

"We heard everything that happened yesterday, from inside the fountain," Sonia said. "When we heard you cleaning the fountain we tried to make as much noise as we could, but you couldn't hear us over the sound of all that water."

Manic squeezed a whole puddle out of the soaked stitches of his left sweater sleeve. Then he reached under his shirt and brought out a dark green notebook. "We tried to keep our notebooks as dry as possible," he explained. "After all, there's crucial information in here."

"We have all the information about V.F.D.," Sonia said, taking out her notebook, which was pitch black. "The real V.F.D., that is not the Village of Fowl Devotees."

Manic opened his notebook and blew on some of the damp pages. "And we know the complete story of poor Choc — "

Manic was interrupted by a shriek behind him, and the five children turned to see two members of the Council of Elders staring at the hole in the uptown jail. Quickly, the Hedges and Quagmires ducked behind Fowl Fountain so they wouldn't be seen.

One of the Elders shrieked again, and removed his crow hat to dab at his brow with a tissue. "They've escaped!" he cried. "Rule #1,742 clearly states that no one is allowed to escape from jail. How dare they disobey this rule!"

"We should have expected this from a murderer and her two accomplices," the other Elder said. "And look — they've damaged Fowl Fountain. The beak is split wide open. Our beautiful fountain is ruined!"

"Those three orphans are the worst criminals in history," the first replied. "Look — there's Detective Dupin, walking down that street. Let's go tell him what's happened. Maybe he'll figure out where they've gone."

"You go tell Dupin," the second Elder said, "and I'll go call The Daily Punctilio. Maybe they'll put my name in the newspaper."

The two members of the Council hurried off to spread the news, and the children sighed in relief. "Cose," Sonic said.

"That was too close," Amy replied. "Soon this whole district will be full of citizens hunting us down."

"Well, nobody's hunting us" Manic said. "Sonia and I will walk in front of you, so you won't be spotted."

"But where can we go?" Sonia asked. "This vile village is in the middle of nowhere."

"I helped Jet finish his self-sustaining hot air mobile home," Tails said, "and he promised to have it waiting for us. All we have to do is make it to the outskirts of town, and we can escape."

"And live forever up in the air?" Amy said frowning. "Maybe it won't be forever," Tails replied.

"Scylla!" Sonic said, which meant "It's either the self-sustaining hot air mobile home or being burned at the stake!"

"When you say it like that," Amy said, "I'm convinced."

Everyone agreed, and Tails looked around the courtyard to see if anyone else had arrived yet. "In a place as flat as this one," she said, "you can see people coming from far away, and we're going to use that to our advantage. We'll walk along any empty street we can find, and if we see anyone coming, we'll turn a corner. We won't be able to get there as the crow flies, but eventually we'll be able to reach Nevermore Tree."

"Speaking of the crows," Amy said to the two triplets, "how did you manage to deliver those poems by crow? And how did you know that we would receive them?"

"Let's get moving," Sonia replied. "We'll tell you the whole story as we go along."

The five children got moving. With the Quagmire triplets in the lead, the group of youngsters peered down one street after another until they found one without a sign of anyone coming, and hurried out of the courtyard.

"Eggman smuggled us away in that item from the In Auction with the help of Eudora Squalor," Manic began, referring to the last time the Hedges had seen him and his sister. "And he hid us for a while in the tower room of his terrible house."

Tails shuddered. "I haven't thought of that room in quite some time," she said. "It's hard to believe that we used to live with such a vile man."

Amy pointed to the distant figure who was walking toward them, and the five children turned onto another empty street. "This street doesn't lead to Jet's house," he said, we'll try to double back. Go on, Manic."

"Eggman learned that you three would be living with Jet at the outskirts of this town " Manic continued, "and he had his associates build that hideous fountain."

"Then he placed us inside," Sonia said "and had us installed in the uptown courtyard so he could keep an eye on us while he tried to hunt you down. We knew that you were our only chance of escaping."

The children reached a corner and stopped, while Manic peeked around it to make sure no one was approaching. He signaled that it was safe, and continued the story. "We needed to send you a message, but we were afraid it would fall into the wrong hands. Sonia had the idea of writing in couplets, with our location hidden in the first letter of each line."

"And Manic figured out how to get them to Jet's house," Sonia said. "He'd done some research about migration patterns in large black birds, so he knew that the crows would roost every night in Nevermore Tree — right next to Jet's house. Every morning, I would write a couplet, and the two of us would reach up through the fountain's beak."

"There was always a crow roosting on the very top of the fountain," Manic said, "so we would wrap the scrap of paper around its leg. The paper was all wet from the fountain, so it would stick easily."

"And Manic 's research was absolutely right. The paper dried off, and fell at night." Sonia recited.

"That was a risky plan," Tails said.

"No riskier than breaking out of jail, and putting your lives in danger to rescue us," Manic said, and looked at the Hedges in gratitude. "You saved our lives — again."

"We wouldn't leave you behind," Amy said. "We refused to entertain the notion."

Sonia smiled, and patted Amy's hand. "Meanwhile," she said, "while we were trying to contact you, Eggman hatched a plan to steal your fortune — and get rid of an old enemy at the same time."

"You mean Chocolate ," Tails said. "When we saw him with the Council of Elders, he was trying to tell us something. Why does he have the same tattoo as Eggman? Who is he?"

"His full name," Manic said, flipping through his notebook, "is Chocolate Snicket."

"That sounds familiar," Tails said.

"I'm not surprised," Manic said. "Chocolate Snicket is the brother of a man who — "

"There they are!" a voice cried, and in an instant the children realized they had neglected to look in back of them, as well as in front of them and around each corner. About two blocks behind them was the old lion, leading a small group of torch-carrying citizens straight up the street. The day was getting later, and the torches left long, skinny shadows on the sidewalk as if the mob were being led by slithering black serpents, instead of a man in plaid pants. "There are the orphans!" the old lion cried triumphantly. "After them, citizens!"

"Who are those other two?" asked an Elder in the crowd.

"Who cares?" said Mrs. Morrow, and waved her torch. "They're probably more accomplices! Let's burn them at the stake, too!"

"Why not?" said another Elder. "We already have torches and kindling, and I don't have anything else to do right now."

Old lion stopped at a corner and called down a street the children couldn't see. "Hey, everyone!" he shouted. "They're over here!"

The five children had been staring at the group of citizens, too terrified to get moving again. Sonic was the first to recover. "Lililk!" she shouted, and began crawling down the street as fast as she could. She meant something like "Let's go! Don't look behind you! Let's just try to get to Jet and his self-sustaining hot air mobile home before the mob catches up with us and burns us at the stake!" but her companions didn't need any encouragement. Down the street they raced, paying no attention to the footsteps and shouts behind them, which seemed to be growing in number as more and more people heard the news that V.F.D.'s prisoners were escaping. The children ran down narrow alleys and wide main streets, across parks and bridges that were all covered in black feathers. Occasionally they had to retrace their steps, a phrase which here means "turn around and run the other way when they saw townspeople approaching," and often they had to duck into doorways or hide behind shrubbery while angry citizens ran by, as if the children were playing a game of hide-and-go- seek instead of running for their lives. The afternoon wore on, and the shadows on V.F.D.'s streets grew longer and longer, and still the sidewalks echoed with the sounds of the mob's cries and the windows of the buildings reflected the flames from the torches the townspeople were carrying. Finally, the five children reached the outskirts of town, and stared at the flat, bare landscape. The Hedges searched desperately for a sign of the handyman and his invention, but only the shapes of Jet's house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree were visible on the horizon.

"Where's Jet?" Sonia asked frantically.

"I don't know," Tails said. "He said he'd be at the barn, but I don't see him."

"Where can we go?" Manic cried. "We can't hide anywhere around here. The citizens will spot us in a second."

"We're trapped," Amy said, his voice hoarse with panic.

"Vireo!" Sonic cried, which meant "Let's run as fast as we can!"

"We'll never run fast enough," Tails said, pointing behind them. "Look."

The youngsters turned around, and saw the entire Village of Fowl Devotees, marching together in a huge group. They had rounded the last corner and were now heading straight toward the five children, their footsteps as loud as a roll of thunder. But the youngsters did not feel as if it was thunder that was rolling toward them. As hundreds of fierce and angry citizens approached, it felt more like the rolling of an enormous root vegetable. It felt like a root vegetable that could crush all of the reptiles in Uncle Knuckles' collection in five seconds flat, or one that could soak up every drop of water of Lake Lachrymose in an instant. The

approaching crowd felt like a root vegetable that made every tree in the Finite Forest look like a tiny twig, made the huge lasagna served at the Prufrock Preparatory School cafeteria look like a light snack, and made the skyscraper at 667 Dark Avenue look like a dollhouse made for midget children to play with, a root vegetable so tremendous in size that it would win every first-place ribbon in every starchy farm crop competition in every state and county fair in the entire world from now until the end of time. The march of the torch-wielding mob, eager to capture Tails and Amy and Sonic and Manic and Sonia and burn each one of them at the stake, felt like the largest potato the Hedge orphans and the Quagmire triplets had ever encountered.

Chapter 13

The Hedges looked at the Quadmires and they did the same. All five children then looked at the mob. All the members of the council of elders were walking together, their crow shapped hats bobbing in unison. The old lion was leading a chant of "Burn the orphans! Burn the orphans!"

The only person who was missing was Detective Dupin who the children expected to lead the crowd. Instead Officer Luciana walked in front, a scowling below the visor of her helmet as she led the way in her shiny black boots. In one white-gloved hand she was clutching something covered in a blanket, and with the other hand she was pointing at the terrified children.

"There they are!" Officer Luciana cried, pointing her white-gloved finger at the five terrified children. "They have nowhere else to go!"

"She's right!" Amy cried. "There's no way to escape!" "Machina!" Sonic shrieked.

"There's no sign of deus ex machina, Sonic," Tails said, his eyes filling with tears. "I don't think anything helpful will arrive unexpectedly."

"Machina!" Sonic insisted, and pointed at the sky. The children took their eyes off the approaching mob and looked up, and there was the greatest example of deus ex machine they had ever seen. Floating just over the children's heads was the superlative sight of the self- sustaining hot air mobile home. Although the invention had been quite marvelous to look at in Jet's studio, it was truly wondrous now that it was actually being put to use, and even the angry citizens of V.F.D. stopped chasing the children for a moment, just so they could stare at this amazing sight. The self-sustaining hot air mobile home was enormous, as if an entire cottage had somehow detached itself from its neighborhood and was wandering around the sky. The twelve baskets were all connected and floating together like a group of rafts, with all of the tubes, pipes, and wires twisted around them like a huge piece of knitting. Above the baskets were dozens of balloons in varying shades of green. Fully inflated, they looked like a floating crop of crisp, ripe apples glistening in the last light of the afternoon. The mechanical devices were working at full force, with flashing lights, spinning gears, ringing bells, dripping faucets, whirring pulleys, and a hundred other gadgets all going at once, but miraculously, the entire self-sustaining hot air mobile home was as silent as a cloud. As the invention sailed toward the ground, the only sound that could be heard was Jet's triumphant shout.

"Here I am!" the handyman called from the control basket. "And here it is, like a bolt from the blue! Tails, your improvements are working perfectly. Climb aboard, and we'll escape from this wretched place." He flicked a bright yellow switch, and a long ladder made of rope began to unfurl down to where the children were standing. "Because my invention is self- sustaining," he explained, "it isn't designed to come back down to the ground, so you'll have to climb up this ladder."

Manic caught the end of the ladder and held it for Sonia to climb up. "I'm Manic Quagmire," he said quickly, "and this is my sister, Sonia."

"Yes, the Hedges have told me all about you," Jet said. "I'm glad you're coming along. Like all mechanical devices, the self-sustaining hot air mobile home actually needs several people to keep it running."

"Aha!" cried Mr. Lesko, as Sonia hurriedly climbed the ladder with Manic right behind her. The mob had stopped staring at the deus ex machina and was now marching once again toward the children. "I knew it was a mechanical device! All those buttons and gears can't fool me!"

"Why, Jet!" an Elder said. "Rule #67 clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices."

"Burn him at the stake, too!" cried Mrs. Morrow. "Somebody get extra kindling!"

Jet took a deep breath, and then called down to the mob without a trace of skittishness in his voice. "Nobody's going to be burned at the stake," he said firmly, as Sonia reached the top of the ladder and joined Jet in the control basket. "Burning people at the stake is a repulsive thing to do!"

"What's repulsive is your behavior," an Elder replied. "The children have murdered Count Eggman, and you have built a mechanical device. You have both broken very important rules!"

"I don't want to live in a place with so many rules," Jet replied in a quiet voice, "or a place with so many crows. I'm floating away from here, and I'm taking these five children with me. The Hedges and the Quagmires have had a horrible time since their parents died. The Village of Fowl Devotees ought to be taking care of them, instead of accusing them of things and chasing them through the streets."

"But who's going to do our chores?" an Elder asked. "The Snack Hut is still full of dirty dishes from our hot fudge sundaes."

"You should do your own chores," the handyman said, as he leaned over to lift Manic aboard his invention, "or take turns doing them according to a fair schedule. The aphorism is 'It takes a village to raise a child,' not 'Three children should clean up after a village.' Hedges, climb aboard. Let's leave these terrible people behind us."

The Hedges smiled at one another, and began climbing up the rope ladder. Tails went first, his hands clutching the scratchy rope as tightly as she could, and Amy and Sonic followed closely behind. Jet turned a knob, and the mobile home rose up higher just as the crowd reached the end of the ladder. "They're getting away!" another Elder called, her crow-shaped hat bobbing with frustration. She jumped up to try to grab the edge of the ladder, but Jet had maneuvered his invention too high for her to reach. "The rulebreakers are getting away! Officer Luciana, do something!"

"I'll do something, all right," Officer Luciana said with a snarl, and tossed away the blanket she had been holding. From halfway down the ladder, the three climbing Hedges looked down and saw a large, wicked-looking object in Luciana's hands, with a bright red trigger and four long, sharp hooks. "You're not the only one with a mechanical device!" she called up to Jet. "This is a harpoon gun that my boyfriend bought for me. It fires four hooked harpoons, which are long spears perfect for popping balloons."

"Oh no!" Jet said, looking down at the climbing children.

"Raise the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, Jet!" Tails called. "We'll keep climbing!"

"Our Chief of Police is using a mechanical device?" Mrs. Morrow asked in astonishment. "That means she's breaking Rule #67, too."

"Officers of the law are allowed to break rules," Luciana said, aiming the harpoon gun in Jet's direction. "Besides, this is an emergency. We need to get those murderers down from there." Members of the mob looked at one another in confusion, but Luciana merely

gave them a lipsticked smile, and pressed the harpoon gun's trigger with a sharp click! followed by a swoosh! as one of the hooked harpoons flew out of the gun straight toward Jet's invention. The handyman managed to manuever the self-sustaining hot air mobile home so the harpoon did not hit a balloon, but it struck a metal tank on the side of one of the baskets, making a large hole.

"Drat!" Jet said, as a purplish liquid began to pour out of the hole. "That's my supply of cranberry juice! Hedges, hurry up! If she causes any serious damage, we're all doomed!"

"We're coming as fast as we can!" Amy cried, but as Jet moved his invention even higher in the air, the rope ladder was shaking so much that the Hedges could not move very fast at all.

Click! Swoosh! Another harpoon flew through the air and landed in the sixth basket, sending a cloud of brown dust fluttering to the ground, followed by some thin metal tubes. "She hit our supply of whole wheat flour," Jet cried, "and our spare box of extra batteries!"

"I'll hit a balloon with this one!" Officer Luciana called. "Then you'll fall to the ground, where we can burn you at the stake!"

"Officer Luciana," said one of the Council of Elders in the crowd, "I don't think you should break the rules in order to capture people who have broken the rules. It doesn't make sense."

"Hear, hear!" called out a townsperson from the opposite side of the crowd. "Why don't you put down the harpoon gun, and we'll walk over to Town Hall and have a council meeting."

"It's not cool," called out a voice, "to have meetings!" There was a rumble, as if another large potato had arrived, and the crowd parted to reveal Detective Dupin, riding through the mob on a motorcycle painted turquoise to match his blazer. Below his sunglasses was a grin of triumph, and his bare chest swelled with pride.

"Detective Dupin is using a mechanical device too?" an Elder asked. "We can't burn everyone at the stake!"

"Dupin isn't a citizen," another member of the Council pointed out, "so he's not breaking Rule #67."

"But he's riding through a crowd of people," Mr. Lesko said, "and he's not wearing a helmet. He's not showing good judgment, that's for sure."

Detective Dupin ignored Mr. Lesko's lecture about motorcycle safety and pulled to a stop beside Officer Luciana. "It's cool to be late," he said, and snapped his fingers. "I was buying today's edition of The Daily Punctilio."

"You shouldn't be buying newspapers," said an Elder, shaking his crow hat in disapproval. "You should be catching criminals."

"Hear, hear!" said several voices in agreement, but the crowd was beginning to look uncertain. It is hard work to be fierce all afternoon, and as the situation grew more complicated, the citizens of V.F.D. seemed a bit less bloodthirsty. A few townspeople even lowered their torches, which had been heavy to hold up all this time.

But Detective Dupin ignored this change in V.F.D.'s mob psychology. "Leave me alone, you crow-hatted fool," he said to the Elder, and snapped his fingers. "It's cool to fire away, Officer Luciana."

"It certainly is," Luciana said, and looked up into the sky to aim the harpoon gun again. But the self-sustaining hot air mobile home was no longer alone in the sky. In all the commotion, no one had noticed that the afternoon was over, and the V.F.D. crows had left their downtown roost to fly in circles before migrating to Nevermore Tree to spend the night as usual. Now the crows were arriving, thousands and thousands of them, and in seconds the evening sky was covered in black, muttering birds. Officer Luciana could not see Jet and his invention. Jet could not see the Hedges. And the Hedges could not see anything. The rope ladder was right in the path of the migrating crows, and the three children were absolutely surrounded by the birds of V.F.D. The wings of the crows rustled against the children, and their feathers became tangled in the ladder, and all the three siblings could do was hang on for dear life.

"Hedges!" Jet called down. "Hang on for dear life! I'm going to fly even higher, over the crows!"

"No!" Sonic cried, which meant something like, "I'm not sure that's the wisest plan — we won't survive a fall from such a height!" but Jet couldn't hear him over another click! and swoosh! from Luciana's harpoon gun. The Hedges felt the rope ladder jerk sharply in their hands, and then twist dizzily in the crow-filled air. From up in the control basket, the Quagmire triplets looked down and caught a glimpse, through the migrating crows, of some very bad news.

"The harpoon hit the ladder!" Sonia called down to her friends in despair. "The rope is coming unraveled!"

It was true. As the crows began to settle in at Nevermore Tree, the Hedges could see more clearly, and they stared up at the ladder in horror. The harpoon was sticking out of one of the ladder's thick ropes, which was slowly uncurling around the hook. It reminded Amy of a time when she was much younger, and had begged her mother to braid her hair so she could look like a famous reader she had seen in a magazine. Despite her mother's best efforts, the braids had not held their shape, and had come unraveled almost as soon as she had tied their ends with ribbons. Tails had rembered the incedent well and he remembered that Amy's hair had slowly spun out of the braid, just as the strands of rope were spinning out of the ladder now.

"Climb faster!" Manic screamed down. "Climb faster!"

"No," Tails said quietly, and then said it again so his siblings could hear. More and more crows were taking their places in the tree, and Amy and Sonic could see Tails' grim face as she looked down at them in despair. "No." The eldest Hedge took another look at the unraveling rope and saw that they couldn't possibly climb up to the basket of Jet's self- sustaining hot air mobile home. It was just as impossible as his mother ever braiding Amy's hair

again. "We can't do it," she said. "If we keep trying to climb up, we'll fall to our deaths. We have to climb down."

"But — " Amy said.

"No," Tails said, and one tear rolled down her cheek. "We won't make it, Amy." "Yoil!" Sonic said.

"No," Tails said again, and looked his siblings in the eye. The three Hedges shared a moment of frustration and despair that they could not follow their friends, and then, without another word, they began climbing down the unraveling ladder, through the murder of crows still migrating to Nevermore Tree. When the Hedges climbed down nine rungs, the rope unbraided completely and dropped the children onto the flat landscape, unhappy but unharmed.

"Jet, maneuver your invention back down!" Sonia called. Her voice sounded a bit faint from so far away. "Manic and I can lean out of the basket and make a human ladder! There's still time to retrieve them!"

"I can't," Jet said sadly, gazing down at the Hedges, who were standing up and untangling themselves from the fallen ladder, as Detective Dupin began to stride toward them in his plastic shoes. "It's not designed to return to the ground."

"There must be a way!" Manic cried, but the self-sustaining hot air mobile home only floated farther away.

"We could try to climb Nevermore Tree," Amy said, "and jump into the control basket from its highest branches."

Tails shook his head. "The tree is already half covered in crows," he said, "and Jet's invention is flying too high." She looked up in the sky and cupped her hands to her mouth so her voice could travel all the way up to her friends. "We can't reach you now!" she cried. "We'll try to catch up with you later!"

Sonia's voice came back so faintly that the Hedges could scarcely hear it over the muttering of the crows, who were still settling themselves in Nevermore Tree. "How can you catch up with us later," she called, "in the middle of the air?"

"I don't know!" Tails admitted. "But we'll find a way, I promise you!"

"In the meantime," Manic called back, "take these!" The Hedges could see the triplet holding his dark green notebook, and Sonia holding hers, over the side of the basket. "This is all the information we have about Count Eggman's evil plan, and the secret of V.F.D., and Chocolate Snicket's murder!" His voice was as trembly as it was faint, and the three siblings knew their friend was crying. "It's the least we can do!" he called.

"Take our notebooks, Hedges!" Sonia called, "and maybe someday we'll meet again!"

The Quagmire triplets dropped their notebooks out of the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, and called out "Good-bye!" to the Hedges, but their farewell was drowned out by the sound of another click! and another swoosh! as Officer Luciana fired one last harpoon. After so much practice, I'm sorry to say, her aim had improved, and the hook hit exactly what Luciana hoped it would. The sharp spear sailed through the air and hit not one but both Quagmire notebooks. There was a loud ripping noise, and then the air was filled with sheets of paper, tossing this way and that in the rustling wind made by the flying crows. The Quagmires yelled in frustration, and called one last thing down to their friends, but Jet's invention had flown too high for the Hedges to hear it all.

". . . volunteer . . ." the children heard dimly, and then the self-sustaining hot air balloon floated too high for the orphans to hear anything more.

"Tesper!" Sonic cried, which meant "Let's try to gather up as many pages of the notebooks as we can!"

"If 'Tesper' means 'All is lost,' then that baby isn't so stupid after all," said Detective Dupin, who had reached the Hedges. He opened his blazer, exposing more of his pale and hairy chest, and took a rolled-up newspaper out of an inside pocket, looking down at the children as if they were three bugs he was about to squash. "I thought you'd want to see The Daily Punctilio" he said, and unrolled the newspaper to show them the headline. "Hedge orphans at large!" it read, using a phrase which here means "not in jail." Below the headline were three drawings, one of each sibling's face.

Detective Dupin removed his sunglasses so he could read the newspaper in the fading light. "Authorities are trying to capture Troy, Amelia, and Sammy Hedge," he read out loud, "who escaped from the uptown jail of the Village of Fowl Devotees, where they were imprisoned for the murder of Count Redman." He gave the children a nasty smile and threw The Daily Punctilio down on the ground. "Some names are wrong, of course," he said, "but everybody makes mistakes. Tomorrow, of course, there will be another special edition, and I'll make sure that The Daily Punctilio gets every detail correct in the story about Detective Dupin's supercool capture of the notorious Hedges."

Dupin leaned down to the children, so close that they could smell the egg salad sandwich he'd apparently eaten for lunch. "Of course," he said, in a quiet voice so only the siblings could hear him, "one Hedge will escape at the last minute, and live with me until the fortune is mine. The question is, which Hedge will that be? You still haven't let me know your decision."

"We're not going to entertain that notion, Eggman," Tails said bitterly.

"Oh no!" an Elder cried, and pointed out at the flat horizon. By the light of the sunset, the Hedges could see a small, slender shape sticking out of the ground, while the Quagmire pages fluttered by. It was the last harpoon Luciana had fired, and it had hit something else after destroying the Quagmire notebooks. There, pinned to the ground, was one of the V.F.D. crows, opening its mouth in pain.

"You harmed a crow!" Mrs. Morrow said in horror, pointing at Officer Luciana. "That's Rule #1! That's the most important rule of all!"

"Oh, it's just a stupid bird," Detective Dupin said, turning to face the horrified citizens.

"A stupid bird?" an Elder repeated, his crow hat trembling in anger. "A stupid bird?' Detective Dupin, this is the Village of Fowl Devotees, and — "

"Wait a minute!" interrupted a voice from the crowd. "Look, everyone! He has only one eyebrow!"

Detective Dupin, who had removed his sunglasses to read the paper, reached into the pocket of his blazer and put them back on again. "Lots of people have one eyebrow," he said, but the crowd paid no attention as mob psychology began to take hold again.

"Let's make him take off his shoes," Mr. Lesko called, and an Elder knelt down to grab one of Dupin's feet. "If he has a tattoo, let's burn him at the stake!"

"Hear, hear!" a group of citizens agreed.

"Now, wait just a minute!" Officer Luciana said, putting down the harpoon gun and looking at Dupin in concern.

"And let's burn Officer Luciana, too!" Mrs. Morrow said. "She wounded a crow!" "We don't want all these torches to go to waste!" cried an Elder.

"Hear, hear!"

Detective Dupin opened his mouth to speak, and the children could see he was thinking frantically of something to say that would fool V.F.D.'s citizens. But then he simply closed his mouth, and with a flick of his foot, kicked the Elder who was holding on to his shoe. As the mob gasped, the Elder's crow-shaped hat fell off as she rolled to the ground, still clutching Dupin's plastic shoe.

"It's the tattoo!" one of the Verhoogens cried, pointing at the eye on Detective Dupin's — or, more properly, Count Eggman's — left ankle. With a roar, Eggman ran back to his motorcycle and, with another roar, he started the engine. "Hop aboard, Eudora!" he called out to Officer Luciana. The Chief removed her motorcycle helmet with a smile, and the Hedges saw that it was indeed Eudora Squalor.

"It's Eudora Squalor!" an Elder cried. "She used to be the city's sixth most successful financial advisor, but now she works with Count Eggman!"

"I heard the two of them are dating!" Mrs. Morrow said in horror.

"We are dating!" Eudora cried in triumph. She climbed aboard Eggman's motorcycle and tossed her helmet to the ground, showing that she cared no more about motorcycle safety than she did about the welfare of crows.

"So long, Hedges!" Count Eggman called, zooming through the angry crowd. "I'll find you again, if the authorities don't find you first!"

Eudora cackled as the motorcycle roared off across the flat landscape at more than twice the legal speed limit, so within moments the motorcycle was as tiny a speck on the horizon as the self-sustaining hot air mobile home was in the sky. The mob stared after the two villains in disappointment.

"We'll never catch up to them," an Elder said with a frown. "Not without any mechanical devices."

"Never mind about that," another Elder replied. "We have more important things to attend to. Hurry, everyone! Rush this crow to the V.F.D. vet!"

The Hedges looked at one another in astonishment as the citizens of V.F.D. carefully unpinned the crow and began to carry it back into town. "What should we do?" Tails asked. She was talking to her siblings, but a member of the Council of Elders overheard and turned back to answer her. "Stay right here," he said. "Count Eggman and that dishonest girlfriend of his may have escaped, and that you were right in a way but you three are still criminals. We'll burn you at the stake as soon as this crow has received proper medical attention."

The Elder ran after the crow-carrying mob, and in a few seconds the children were alone on the flat landscape with only the shuffling papers of the Quagmire notebooks for company. "Let's gather these up," Amy said, stooping down to pick up one badly ripped page. "They're our only hope of discovering the secret of V.F.D." "And of defeating Count Eggman," Tails agreed, walking over to where a small stack of pages had blown together.

"Phelon!" Sonic said, scrambling after one that seemed to have a map scrawled on it. He meant "And of proving that we're not murderers!" and the children paused to look at The Daily Punctilio, which still lay on the ground. Their own faces stared back at them, below the headline "Hedge orphans at large!" but the children did not feel at large. The Hedges felt as small as could be, standing alone on the bare outskirts of V.F.D., chasing down the few pages of the Quagmire notebooks that were not gone forever. Tails managed to grab six pages, and Amy managed to grab seven, and Sonic managed to grab nine, but many of the recovered pages were ripped, or blank, or all crumpled from the wind.

"We'll study them later," Tails said, gathering the pages together and tying them in a bundle with his bang ribbon. "In the meantime, we have to get out of here before the mob returns."

"But where will we go?" Amy asked.

"Burb," Sonic said, which meant "Anywhere, as long as it's out of town."

"Who will take care of us out there?" Amy said, looking out on the flat horizon. "Nobody," Tails said. "We'll have to take care of ourselves. We'll have to be

selfsustaining."

"Like the hot air mobile home," Amy said, "that could travel and survive all by itself."

The three Hedges stood together, casting long shadows across the horizon in the dying light of the sunset. They looked up to see a tiny dot in the sky, far far away, where the Quagmire triplets would live in safety with Jet. They looked out at the landscape, where Count Eggman had ridden off with Eudora Squalor, to find his associates and cook up another scheme. They looked back at Nevermore Tree, where the V.F.D. crows were muttering together for their evening roost, and then they looked out at the world, where families everywhere would soon be reading all about the three siblings in the special edition of The Daily Punctilio. It seemed to the Hedges that every creature in the world was being taken care of by others — every creature except for themselves. But the children, of course, could care for one another, as they had been caring for one another since that terrible day at the beach. Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked at one another and took a deep breath, gathering up all their courage to face all the bolts from the blue that they guessed — and, I'm sorry to say, guessed correctly — lay ahead of them, and then the self-sustaining Hedge orphans took their first steps away from town and toward the last few rays of the setting sun.

TO MY KIND EDITOR,

PLEASE EXCUSE THE WORD STOP AT THE END OF EVERY SENTENCE STOP. TELEGRAMS ARE THE QUICKEST WAY TO DELIVER A MESSAGE FROM LAST CHANCE GENERAL STORE, AND IN A TELEGRAM, STOP IS THE WAY TO SIGNAL WHEN A SENTENCE STOPS STOP.

THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE INVITED TO A PARTY, WEAR YOUR THIRD NICEST SUIT AND PRETEND TO NOTICE A SPOT STOP THE NEXT DAY, TAKE THE SUIT TO THE DRY CLEANERS FOR CLEANING STOP. WHEN YOU COME TO PICK IT UP, YOU WILL RECEIVE INSTEAD A SHOPPING BAG CONTAINING MY ENTIRE ACCOUNT OF THE HEDGE CHILDREN'S EXPERIENCES IN THIS AREA ENTITLED "THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL" ALONG WITH AN INTERCOM SPEAKER, ONE OF THE LAMPS MISTAKENLY DELIVERED TO HAL, AND A HEART-SHAPED BALLOON THAT HAS POPPED STOP. I WILL ALSO INCLUDE A SKETCH OF THE KEY TO THE LIBRARY OF RECORDS, SO THAT MR. HELQUIST CAN ILLUSTRATE IT PROPERLY STOP REMEMBER, YOU ABE MY LAST HOPE THAT THE TALES OF THE HEDGE ORPHANS CAN FINALLY BE TOLD TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC STOP.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, LEMONY SNICKET PS YOUR SUIT WILL BE MAILED TO YOU LATER STOP. YOU WILL GET IT NEXT THURSDAY STOP.


	9. Hostile Hospital

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Eighth

The Hostile Hospital Lemony Snicket

For Cream -

Summer without you is as cold as winter

Winter without you is even colder

 _R_

One

 _There_ are two reasons why a writer would end a sentence with the word "stop" written entirely in capital letters STOP. The first is if the writer were writing a telegram, which is a coded message sent through an electrical wire STOP. In a telegram, the word "stop" in all capital letters is the code for the end of a sentence STOP. But there is another reason why a writer would end a sentence with "stop" written entirely in capital letters, and that is to warn readers that the book they are reading is so utterly wretched that if they have begun reading it, the best thing to do would be to stop STOP. This particular book, for instance, describes an especially unhappy time in the dreadful lives of Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge, and if you have any sense at all you will shut this book immediately, drag it up a tall mountain, and throw it off the very top STOP. There is no earthly reason why you should read even one more word about the misfortune, treachery, and woe that are in store for the three Hedge children, any more than you should run into the street and throw yourself under the wheels of a bus STOP. This "stop"-ended sentence is your very last chance to pretend the "STOP" warning is a stop sign, and to stop the flood of despair that awaits you in this book, the heart- stopping horror that begins in the very next sentence, by obeying the "STOP" and stopping STOP.

The Hedge orphans stopped. It was early in the morning, and the three children had been walking for hours across the flat and unfamiliar landscape. They were thirsty, lost, and exhausted, which are three good reasons to end a long walk, but they were also frightened, desperate, and not far from people who wanted to hurt them, which are three good reasons to continue. The siblings had abandoned all conversation hours ago, saving every last bit of their energy to put one foot in front of the other, but now they knew they had to stop, if only for a moment, and talk about what to do next.

The children were standing in front of the Last Chance General Store-the only building they had encountered since they began their long and frantic nighttime walk. The outside of the store was covered with faded posters advertising what was sold, and by the eerie light of the Half-moon, the Hedges could see that fresh limes, plastic knives, canned meat, white envelopes, mango-flavored candy, red wine, leather wallets, fashion magazines, goldfish bowls, sleeping bags, roasted figs, cardboard boxes, controversial vitamins, and many other things were available inside the store. Nowhere on the building, however, was there a poster advertising help, which is really what the Hedges needed.

"I think we should go inside," said Tails, taking a ribbon out of his pocket to tie up his bangs. Tails, the eldest Hedge, was probably the finest fourteen-year-old inventor in the world, and he always tied his bangs up in a ribbon when he had to solve a problem, and right now he was trying to invent a solution for the biggest problem he and his siblings had ever faced. "Perhaps there's somebody in there who can help us in some way."

"But perhaps there's somebody in there who has seen our pictures in the newspaper," said Amy, the middle Hedge, who had recently spent her thirteenth birthday in a filthy jail cell. Amy had a real knack for remembering nearly every word of nearly all of the thousands of books she had read, and he frowned as she remembered something untrue she had recently read about himself in the newspaper. "If they read The Daily Punctilio,"he continued, "perhaps they believe all those terrible things about us. Then they won't help us at all."

"Agery!" Sonic said. Sonic was a baby, and as with most babies, different parts of his were growing at different rates. He had only four teeth, for example, but each of them was as sharp as that of an adult lion, and although he was a fast runner, Sonic was still getting the hang of speaking in a way that all adults could understand. His siblings, however, knew at once that she meant "Well, we can't keep on walking forever," and the two older Hedges nodded in agreement.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "It's called the Last Chance General Store. That sounds like it's the only building for miles and miles. It might be our only opportunity to get some help."

"And look," Amy said, pointing to a poster taped in a high corner of the building. "We can send a telegram inside. Maybe we can get some help that way."

"Who would we send a telegram to?" Tails asked, and once again the Hedges had to stop and think. If you are like most people, you have an assortment of friends and family you can call upon in times of trouble. For instance, if you woke up in the middle of the night and saw a masked woman trying to crawl through your bedroom window, you might call your mother or father to help you push her back out. If you found yourself hopelessly lost in the middle of a strange city, you might ask the police to give you a ride home. And if you were an author locked in an Italian restaurant that was slowly filling up with water, you might call upon your acquaintances in the locksmith, pasta, and sponge businesses to come and rescue you. But the Hedge children's trouble had begun with the news that their parents had been killed in a terrible fire, so they could not call upon their mother or father. The siblings could not call upon the police for assistance, because the police were among the people who had been chasing them all night long. And they could not call upon their acquaintances, because so many of the children's acquaintances were unable to help them. After the death of the Hedge parents, Tails, Amy, and Sonic had found themselves under the care of a variety of guardians. Some of them had been cruel. Some of them had been murdered. And one of them had been Count Eggman, a greedy and treacherous villain who was the real reason they were all by themselves in the middle of the night, standing in front of the Last Chance General Store, wondering who in the world they could call upon for help.

"Silver," Sonic said finally. She was talking about Mr. Silver Poe, a banker with a nasty cough, who was in charge of taking care of the children following their parents' death. Mr. Silver Poe had never been particularly helpful, but he was not cruel, murdered, or Count Eggman, and those seemed to be reasons enough to contact him.

"I guess we could try Mr. Silver Poe," Amy agreed. "The worst he could do would be to say no."

"Or cough," Tails said with a small smile. Her siblings smiled back, and the three children pushed open the rusty door and walked inside.

"Lou, is that you?" called out a voice, but the children could not see who it belonged to. The inside of the Last Chance General Store was as crowded as its outside, with every inch of space crammed full of things for sale. There were shelves of canned asparagus and racks of fountain pens, next to barrels of onions and crates full of peacock feathers. There were cooking utensils nailed to the walls and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and the floor was made out of thousands of different kinds of tiles, each one stamped with a price tag. "Are you delivering the morning paper?" the voice asked.

"No," Tails replied, as the Hedges tried to make their way toward the person who was talking. With difficulty they stepped over a carton of cat food and rounded a corner, only to find rows and rows of fishnets blocking their way.

"I'm not surprised, Lou," the voice continued, as the siblings doubled back past a stack of mirrors and a pile of socks and headed down an aisle filled with pots of ivy and books of matches. "I usually don't expect The Daily Punctilio until after the Volunteers Fighting Disease arrive."

The children stopped looking for the source of the voice for a moment, and looked at one another, thinking of their friends Manic and Sonia Quagmire. Manic and Sonia were two triplets who, like the Hedges, had lost their parents, along with their brother, Shadow, in a terrible fire. The Quagmires had fallen into Eggman's hands a couple of times and had only recently escaped, but the Hedges did not know if they would see their friends ever again or learn a secret that the triplets had discovered and written down in their notebooks. The secret concerned the initials V.F.D., but the only other clues that the Hedges had were a few pages from Manic's and Sonia's notebooks, and the three siblings had scarcely found the time to look them over. Could Volunteers Fighting Disease finally be the answer the children were searching for?

"No, we're not Lou," Tails called out. "We're three children, and we need to send a telegram."

"A telegram?" called the voice, and as the children rounded another corner they almost ran right into a dog who was talking to them. He was very short, shorter than both Tails and Amy, and looked like he hadn't slept or shaved in quite a long time. He was wearing two different shoes, each with a price tag, and several shirts and hats at once. He was so covered in merchandise that he almost looked like part of the store, except for his friendly smile and dirty fingernails.

"You're certainly not Lou," he said. "Lou is one chubby wolf, and you are three skinny children. What are you doing around here so early? It's dangerous around here, you know. I've heard that this morning's Daily Punctiliohas a story about three murderers who are lurking around this very neighborhood, but I haven't read it yet."

"Newspaper stories aren't always accurate," Amy said nervously.

The shopkeeper frowned. "Nonsense," he said. "The Daily Punctilio wouldn't print things that aren't true. If the newspaper says somebody is a murderer, then they are a murderer and that's the end of it. Now, you say you wanted to send a telegram?"

"Yes," Tails said. "To Mr. Silver Poe at Mulctuary Money Management, in the city."

"It will cost quite a bit of money to send a telegram all the way to the city," the shopkeeper said, and the Hedges looked at one another in dismay.

"We don't have any money with us," Amy admitted. "We're three orphans, and the only money we have is being looked after by Mr. Silver Poe. Please, sir."

"Sos!" Sonic said.

"My brother means 'It's an emergency situation,'" Tails explained, "and it is."

The shopkeeper looked at them for a moment, and then shrugged. "If it's really an emergency situation," he said, "then I won't charge you. I never charge anything for things if they're really important. Volunteers Fighting Disease, for instance. Whenever they stop by, I give them gasoline for free because they do such wonderful work."

"What exactly do they do?" Tails asked.

"They fight disease, of course," the shopkeeper replied. "V.F.D. stop by here early each morning on their way to the hospital. Every day they devote themselves to cheering up patients, and I don't have the heart to charge them for anything."

"You're a very kind man," Amy replied.

"Well, it's very kind of you to say so," the shopkeeper replied. "Now, the device for sending telegrams is over there, next to all those porcelain kittens. I'll help you."

"We can do it ourselves," Tails said. "I built one of those devices myself when I was seven, so I know how to connect the electronic circuit."

"And I've read two books about Morse code," Amy said. "So I can translate our message into electronic signals."

"Help!" Sonic said.

"What a talented group of children," the shopkeeper said with a smile. "Well, I'll leave you three alone. I hope that this Mr. Silver Poe person can help you with your emergency situation."

"Thank you very much, sir," Tails said. "I hope so, too."

The shopkeeper gave the children a little wave and disappeared behind a display of potato peelers, and the Hedges looked at one another in excitement.

"Volunteers Fighting Disease?" Amy whispered to Tails. "Do you think we've finally found the real meaning of V.F.D.?"

"Chocolate!" Sonic said.

Chocolate did say something about working as a volunteer," Amy agreed. "If only we had a few moments to look over the pages from the Quagmire notebooks. They're still in my pocket."

"First things first," Tails said. "Let's send the telegram to Mr. Silver Poe. If Lou delivers this morning's Daily Punctilio, the shopkeeper is going to stop thinking we're a group of talented children and start thinking we're murderers."

"You're right," Amy said. "After Mr. Silver Poe gets us out of this mess, we'll have time to think about these other things."

"Trosslik," Sonic said. He meant something along the lines of, "You mean if Mr. Silver Poe gets us out of this mess," and his siblings nodded grimly and went over to take a look at the telegram device. It was an arrangement of dials, wires, and strange metal implements that I would have been too scared to even touch, but the Hedges approached it with confidence.

"I'm pretty sure we can operate this," Tails said. "It looks fairly simple. See, Amy, you use these two metal strips to tap out the message in Morse code, and I will connect the circuit over here. Sonic, you stand here and put on these earphones to make sure you can hear the signal being transmitted. Let's step to it."

The children stepped to it, a phrase which here means "took their positions around the telegram device." Tails turned a dial, Sonic put on her earphones, and Amy wiped the lenses of his glasses so he could be sure to see what he was doing. The siblings nodded at one another, and Amy began to speak out loud as he tapped out the message in code.

"To: Mr. Silver Poe at Mulctuary Money Management," Amy said. "From: Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge. Please do not believe the story about us printed in The Daily Punctilio STOP. Count Eggman is not really dead, and we did not really murder him STOP."

"Arrete?" Sonic asked.

"'STOP' is the code for the end of a sentence," Amy explained. "Now, what should I say next?"

Soon after our arrival in the town of V.F.D. we were informed that Count Eggman had been captured STOP," Tails dictated. "Although the arrested man had an eye tattooed on his ankle and one eyebrow instead of two, he was not Count Eggman STOP. His name was Chocolate Snicket STOP."

"The next day he was found murdered, and Count Eggman arrived in town along with his girlfriend, Eudora Squalor STOP," Amy continued, tapping away. "As part of his plan to steal the fortune our parents left behind, Count Eggman disguised himself as a detective and convinced the town of V.F.D. that we were the murderers STOP."

"Uckner," Sonic suggested, and Amy translated what she said into English, and then into Morse code: "Meanwhile we discovered where the Quagmire triplets were being hidden, and helped them escape STOP. The Quagmires managed to give us a few scraps of their notebooks so we could try to learn the real meaning of V.F.D. STOP."

"We have managed to flee from the citizens of the town, who want to burn us at the stake for a murder that we did not commit STOP," Tails said, and Amy quickly tapped the sentence out into code before adding two last sentences of his own.

"Please reply at once STOP. Try to help us STOP We are in grave danger STOP."

Amy tapped out the last P in "STOP" and then looked at her brothers. "We are in grave danger," she said again, although her hand did not move on the device.

"You already sent that sentence," Tails said.

"I know," Amy said quietly. "I wasn't putting it into the telegram again. I was just saying it. We are in grave danger. It's almost as if I didn't realize how grave the danger was until I tapped it out into a telegram."

'Ilimi," Sonic said, and took off her earphones so she could lay her head on Amy's shoulder.

"I'm scared, too," Tails admitted, patting her sister's shoulder. "But I'm sure Mr. Silver Poe will help us. We can't be expected to solve this problem all by ourselves."

"But that's how we've solved every other problem," Amy said, "ever since the fire. Mr.

Poe has never done anything except send us to one disastrous home after another. But he did try to belive us after that in in Prufrock Propriatry School. And I do remember that he dosent belive in the daily punctilio "

"He'll help us this time," Tails insisted, although he did not sound very sure. "Just watch the device. He'll send back a telegram any moment now."

"But what if he doesn't?" Amy asked.

"Chonex," Sonic murmured, and wriggled closer to his siblings. He meant something along the lines of "Then we're all alone," which is a curious thing to say when you are with your two siblings, in the middle of a store so stuffed with merchandise you can hardly move. But as they sat closely together, looking at the telegram device, it did not seem curious to the Hedges. They were surrounded by nylon rope, floor wax, soup bowls, window curtains, wooden rocking horses, top hats, fiber-optic cable, pink lipstick, dried apricots, magnifying glasses, black umbrellas, slender paintbrushes, French horns, and each other, but as the Hedge orphans sat and waited for a reply to their telegram, they only felt more and more alone.

Chapter 2

Of all the ridiculas expressions that people use and a great many ridiculas expressions – one of the most ridiculas is "No news is good news" simply means that if you don't hear from someone, everything is probaby fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes little sence, because everything beaing fine is one of many, many reasons why someone hadn't contacted you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might well be changed to "No news is bad news," except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are

competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you, until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be "No news is no news," except that it is so obvious it is hardly an expression at all.

Obvious or not, however, it is the proper way to describe what happened to the Hedges after they sent the desperate telegram to Mr. Silver Poe. Tails, Amy, and Sonic sat and stared at the telegram device for hours, waiting for some sign of the banker's reply. As the hour grew later and later, they took turns dozing against the merchandise of the Last Chance General Store, hoping for any response from the man who was in charge of the orphans' affairs. And as the first few rays of dawn shone through the window, illuminating all of the price tags in the store, the only news the children had received was that the shopkeeper had made some fresh cranberry muffins.

"I've made some fresh cranberry muffins," the shopkeeper said, peeking around a tower of flour sifters. He was wearing at least two pot holders on each hand and was carrying the muffins on a stack of different-colored trays. "Normally I would put them up for sale, between the phonograph records and the garden rakes, but I hate to think of you three children going without breakfast when there are vicious murderers on the loose, so have some for yourself, free of charge."

"That's very kind of you," Tails said, as she and her siblings each took a muffin from the shopkeeper's top tray. The Hedges, who had not eaten since they left the village, soon made short work-a phrase which here means "ate every warm, sweet crumb"-of the pastries.

"Goodness, you're hungry," the shopkeeper said. "Did everything go all right with the telegram? Have you received a reply?"

"Not yet," Amy said.

"Well, don't worry your tiny heads about it," the shopkeeper replied. "Remember, no news is good news."

"No news is good news?" called out a voice from somewhere in the store. "I have some news for you, Milt. All about those murderers."

"Lou!" the shopkeeper called in delight, and then turned to the children. "Excuse me, please," he said. "Lou's here with The Daily Punctilio.''

The shopkeeper walked through a bunch of rugs hanging from the ceiling, and the Hedges looked at one another in dismay.

"What'll we do?" Amy whispered to his sisters. "If the newspaper has arrived, the shopkeeper will read that we're murderers. We'd better run away."

"But if we run away," Tails said, "Mr. Silver Poe won't be able to contact us."

"Gykree!" Sonic cried, which meant "He's had all night to contact us, and we haven't heard from him."

"Lou?" they heard the shopkeeper call out. "Where are you, Lou?"

"I'm over by the pepper grinders," the delivery person called out in return. "And wait till you read this story about the three murderers of that Count. It's got pictures and everything. I saw the police on the way here, and they said they were closing in. The only people they allowed in the area were me and those volunteer people. They're going to capture those kids and send them right to jail."

"Kids?" the shopkeeper said. "The murderers are kids?" "Yep," the delivery person replied. "See for yourself."

The children looked at one another, and Sonic gave a little whimper of fear. Across the store they could hear the rustling of paper and then the excited voice of the shopkeeper.

"I know those kids!" he cried. "They're in my store right now! I just gave them some muffins!"

"You gave muffins to murderers?" Lou said. "That's not right, Milt. Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries."

"I didn't know they were murderers then," the shopkeeper explained, "but I sure know now. It says so right here in The Daily Punctilio. Call the police, Lou! I'll grab these murderers and make sure they don't escape."

The Hedges wasted no more time, and began to run in the opposite direction from the men's voices, down an aisle of safety pins and candy canes. "Let's head toward those ceramic ashtrays," Tails whispered. "I think we can exit that way."

"But what happens when we exit?" Amy whispered back. "The delivery person said that the police were closing in."

"Mulick!" Sonic cried, which meant "Let's discuss that at a later time!"

"Egad!" The children could hear the shopkeeper's surprised voice from several aisles over. "Lou, the kids aren't here! Keep an eye out for them."

"What do they look like?" the delivery-person called back.

"They look like three innocent children," the shopkeeper said, "but they're really vicious criminals. Be careful."

The children ran around a corner and ducked into the next aisle, pressing themselves against a rack of construction paper and canned peas as they listened to the hurrying footsteps of the delivery person. "Wherever you murderers are," he called, "you'd better give up!"

"We're not murderers!" Tails cried in frustration.

'Of course you're murderers!" the shop- keeper answered. "It says so in the newspaper!"

"Plus," the delivery person said in a sneering voice, "if you're not murderers, why are you hiding and running?"

Tails started to answer, but Amy covered his mouth before she could say anything more. "They'll be able to tell where we are by our voices," he whispered. "Just let them talk, and maybe we can escape."

"Lou, do you see them?" called the shopkeeper.

"No, but they can't hide forever," the delivery person said. "I'm going to look over by the undershirts!"

The Hedges looked ahead of them and saw a pile of white undershirts that happened to be on sale. Gasping, the children doubled back, and ran down an aisle covered in ticking clocks.

"I'm going to try the clock aisle!" the shopkeeper cried. "They can't hide forever!"

The children hurried down the aisle, sprinted past a rack of towel racks and piggy banks, and scurried around a display of sensible plaid skirts.

Finally, over the top shelf of an aisle containing nothing but different kinds of bedroom slippers, Tails spotted a glimpse of the exit, and silently pointed the way to her siblings.

"I bet they're in the sausage aisle!" the shopkeeper said.

"I bet they're near the bathtub display!" the delivery person called. "They can't hide forever!" the shopkeeper cried.

The Hedges took a deep breath, and then bolted toward the exit of the Last Chance General Store, but as soon as they got outside they realized the shopkeeper was right. The sun was rising, revealing the flat and desolate landscape the children had walked across all night. In a few hours the entire countryside would be covered in sunlight, and the land was so flat that the children would be seen from far, far away. They couldn't hide forever, and as Tails, Amy, and Sonic stood outside the Last Chance General Store, it seemed that they couldn't hide for even one more instant. "Look!" Amy said, and pointed in the direction of the rising sun. Parked a ways from the store was a square, gray van with the letters V.F.D. printed on its side.

"That must be the Volunteers Fighting Disease," Tails said. "The delivery person said only he and the volunteers were allowed in the area."

"Then they're the only way we can hide," Amy said. "If we can sneak aboard that van, we can escape from the police, at least for now."

"But this might be the right V.F.D.," Tails said. "If these volunteers are part of the sinister secret the Quagmire triplets tried to tell us about, we might be going from a bad situation to a worse one."

"Or," Amy said, "it might get us closer to solving the mystery of Chocolate Snicket.

Remember, he said he worked as a volunteer, right before he was murdered."

"It won't do us any good to solve the mystery of Chocolate Snicket," Tails said, "if we're in jail."

"Blusin," Sonic said. She meant something along the lines of, "We don't have much choice," and in small, tottering steps she led her siblings toward the V.F.D. van.

"But how will we get on the van?" Tails asked, walking alongside her sister. "What will we say to the volunteers?" Amy asked, hurrying to catch up.

"Impro," Sonic said, which meant "We'll think of something," but for once the three children didn't have to think of something. As the youngsters reached the van, a friendly- looking man with a guitar in his hands and a beard on his face leaned out of one of the windows and called to them.

"We almost left you behind, brother and sisters!" he said. "We filled the van up with free gas, and now we're all set to head off to the hospital." With a smile, the man unlatched the door of the van and opened it, beckoning to the three children. "Climb aboard," he said. "We don't want our volunteers to get lost before we even sing the first verse. I heard something about murderers lurking around this area."

"Did you read it in the newspaper?" Amy asked nervously.

The bearded goat laughed, and strummed a cheerful chord on his guitar. "Oh, no," he said. "We don't read the newspaper. It's too depressing. Our motto is 'No news is good news.' You must be new volunteers, not to know that. Well, hop in."

The Hedges hesitated. As I'm sure you know, it is rarely a good idea to get into an automobile with somebody you haven't met before, particularly if the person believes in such nonsense as "No news is good news." But it is nevera good idea to stand around a flat and empty landscape while the police are closing in to arrest you for a crime you have not committed, and the three children paused for a moment to decide between doing something which is rarely a good idea, and something that is never a good idea. They looked at the bearded goat with the guitar. They looked at each other. And then they looked back at the Last Chance General Store, where they saw the shopkeeper, rushing out of the front door and toward the van. "O.K.," Tails said finally. "We'll hop in." The bearded goat smiled, and the children stepped into the V.F.D. van and shut the door behind them. They did not hop, even though the man had asked them to "hop in," because hopping is something done in the cheerful moments of one's life. A plumber might hop, for instance, if she finally fixed a particularly difficult leak in someone's shower. A sculptor would hop if his sculpture of four basset hounds playing cards was finally finished. And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Cream from attending that afternoon tea where she met Eudora Squalor for the first time. But Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not hop, because they were not plumbers fixing leaks, or sculptors finishing works of art, or authors magically erasing a series of unfortunate events. They were three desperate children, falsely accused of murder, forced to run out of a store into a stranger's automobile to avoid capture by the police. The Hedges were not hopping, even as the van

started its engine and began to drive away from the Last Chance General Store, ignoring the desperate signals of the shopkeeper as he ran to try to stop them. As the V.F.D. van began to drive across the lonely landscape, the Hedge orphans were not sure they would ever hop again.

Chapter 3

 _We are volenters fighting disease_

 _And we are cheerful all day long_

 _If that person said that we were sad then that person will be wrong_

 _We visit people who are sick_

 _And try to make them smile_

 _Even if their noses bleed_

 _Or they couth up bile_

 _Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon._

 _Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon._

 _We visit people who are ill, And try to make them laugh, Even when the doctor says He must saw them in Half._

 _We sing and sing all night and day, And then we sing some more._

 _We sing to boys with broken bones And girls whose throats are sore._

 _Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon._

 _We sing to men with measles, And to women with the flu,_

 _And if you breathe in deadly germs, We'll probably sing to you._

 _Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon._

 _Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon_.

An associate of mine named William Congreve once wrote a very sad play that begins with the line "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," a sentence which here means that if you are nervous or upset, you might listen to some music to calm you down or cheer you up. For instance, as I crouch here behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, a friend of mine is playing a sonata on the pipe organ, to calm me down and so the sounds of my typewriter will not be heard by the worshipers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds me of a tune my father used to sing when he did the dishes, and as I listen to it I can temporarily forget six or seven of my troubles.

But the soothing effect of music on a savage breast obviously depends on what kind of music is being played, and I'm sorry to say that as the Hedge orphans listened to the song of V.F.D., they did not feel even one bit less nervous or upset. When Tails, Amy, and Sonic first boarded the V.F.D. van, they were so worried about avoiding capture that they scarcely took a look around them until they were quite far away from the Last Chance General Store. But when the shopkeeper was merely a speck on the flat and empty landscape, the children turned their attention to their new hiding place. There were about twenty people in the van, and every single one of them was exceedingly cheerful. There were cheerful men, cheerful women, a handful of cheerful children, and a very cheerful driver who occasionally took his eyes off the road to grin cheerfully at all his passengers. When the Hedges took a long trip in an automobile, they liked to pass the time reading or looking at the scenery and thinking their own private thoughts, but as soon as the van pulled away from the general store, the bearded goat began playing his guitar and led all of the Volunteers Fighting Disease in a cheerful song, and each "tra la la" only made the Hedges more anxious than before. When the volunteers began to sing the verse about people's noses bleeding, the siblings were sure someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! These three children weren't on the van before! They don't belong here!" When the singers reached the verse about the doctor sawing someone in Half, the children were certain someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! Those three people don't know the lyrics to the song! They don't belong here!" And when the cheerful passengers sung the section of the song discussing deadly germs, the siblings were unequivocally positive that someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! Those three children are the murderers described in The Daily Punctilio! They don't belong here!"

But the Volunteers Fighting Disease were too cheerful to wait a minute. They believed so strongly that no news is good news that none of them had even glanced at The Daily Punctilio. And they were too busy singing to notice that the Hedges didn't belong on the van.

"Boy, do I love that song!" the bearded goat said, when the last chorus had ended. "I could sing it all the way to Heimlich Hospital . But I guess we'd better save our voices for the day's work. So why don't we settle down and have cheerful conversations until we arrive?"

"That sounds super-duper!" said one of the volunteers, and everyone nodded in agreement.

The bearded goat put away his guitar and sat down next to the Hedges.

"We'd better make up false names," Tails whispered to Amy, "so no one will learn who we are."

"But The Daily Punctilio got our names wrong," Amy whispered back, "so maybe we should use our real names."

"Well, let's get to know each other," the bearded goat said cheerfully. "I like to get to know each and every one of our volunteers."

"Well, my name is Thomas," Tails began, "and-"

"No, no," the bearded goat said. "We don't use names in V.F.D. We just call everybody 'sister' and 'brother,' because we believe all people are sisters and brothers."

"I'm confused," Amy said. "I always thought that brothers and sisters are people who share the same parents."

"Not always, brother," the bearded goat said. "Sometimes brothers and sisters are just people who are united for a common cause."

"Does that mean, brother," Amy said, trying this new use of the word "brother" and not liking it much, "that you don't know the names of anyone in this van?"

"That's right, sister," the bearded goat said "And so you've never known the name of anyone who's been a Volunteer Fighting Disease?" Amy asked.

"Not a single one," the bearded goat said. "Why do you ask?"

"There's a person we know," Tails said carefully, "who we think might have been in

V.F.D. He had one eyebrow instead of two, and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle."

The bearded goat frowned. "I don't know anyone of that description," he said, "and I've been with the Volunteers Fighting Disease since the organization first started."

"Rats!" Sonic said.

"What my brother means," Amy said, "is that we're disappointed. We were hoping to learn more about this person."

"Are you sure he was in Volunteers Fighting Disease?" the bearded goat asked. "No," Amy admitted. "We just know he worked in the volunteer something."

"Well, there are lots of volunteer somethings," the bearded goat replied. "What you kids need is some sort of Library of Records."

"A Library of Records?" Tails said.

"A Library of Records is a place where official information is stored," the bearded goat said. "In a Library of Records, you could find a list of every single volunteer organization in

the world. Or you could look up this person and see if there's a file on him. Perhaps that would tell you where he worked."

"Or how he knew our parents," Amy said, speaking out loud without thinking. "Your parents?" the bearded goat said, looking around the van. "Are they here, too?"

The Hedges looked at one another, wishing that their parents were there on the van, even though it would be awkward to call their father "brother" and their mother "sister." Sometimes it seemed to the children that it had been hundreds and hundreds of years since that terrible day at the beach when Mr. Silver Poe brought them the dreadful news, but just as often it seemed as if it had been only minutes. Tails could picture his father, sitting next to him, perhaps pointing out something interesting he had seen through the window. Amy could picture her mother, smiling and shaking his head in amusement at the ridiculous lyrics of the

V.F.D. song. And Sonic could picture all five Hedges, together again, with nobody fleeing from the police, or accused of murder, or trying desperately to solve mysteries, or worst of all, gone forever in a terrible fire. But just because you can picture something does not make it so. The Hedge parents were not in the van, and the children looked at the bearded goat and shook their heads sadly.

"My, you look glum," the bearded goat said. "Well, don't worry. I'm sure wherever your parents are, they're having a good time, so let's not see any frowny faces. Being cheerful is the whole point of Volunteers Fighting Disease."

"What exactly will we be doing at the hospital?" Tails asked, eager to change the subject. "Just what V.F.D. says," the bearded goat replied. "We're volunteers, and we'll be fighting

diseases."

"I hope we won't be giving shots," Amy said. "Needles make me a bit nervous."

"Of course we won't be giving shots," the bearded goat said. "We only do cheerful things. Mostly we wander the Halls singing to sick people, and giving them heart-shaped balloons, like the song says."

"But how does that fight disease?" Tails said.

"Because getting a cheerful balloon helps people picture getting better, and if you picture something, it makes it so," the bearded goat explained. "After all, a cheerful attitude is the most effective tool against sickness."

"I thought antibiotics were," Amy said.

"Echinacea!" Sonic said. She meant "Or well-tested herbal remedies,"

"Or machinery like an MRI" Tails said, but the bearded goat had stopped paying attention to the children and was looking out the window.

"We've arrived, volunteers!" he called out. "We're at Heimlich Hospital !" He turned to the Hedges and pointed out at the horizon. "Isn't it a beautiful building?"

The children looked out the windows of the van and found that they could only half agree with the bearded goat, for the simple reason that Heimlich Hospital was only half a building, or at best two-thirds. The left side of the hospital was a shiny white structure, with a row of tall pillars and small carved portraits of famous doctors over each window. In front of the building was a neatly mowed lawn, with occasional patches of brightly colored wildflowers. But the right side of the hospital was scarcely a structure at all, let alone a beautiful one. There were a few boards nailed together into rectangles, and a few planks nailed down for floors, but there were no walls or windows, so it looked like a drawing of a hospital rather than a hospital itself. There was no sign of any pillars and not even one carved doctor portrait on this half-finished side, just a few sheets of plastic fluttering in the wind, and instead of a lawn there was just an empty field of dirt. It was as if the architect in charge of constructing the building had decided halfway through that he'd rather go on a picnic, and had never returned. The driver parked the van underneath a sign that was Half finished, too: the word "Heimlich" was in fancy gold letters on a clean white square of wood, but the word "Hospital" was scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on a piece of cardboard ripped from an old box.

"I'm sure they'll finish it someday," the bearded goat continued. "But in the meantime, we can picture the other half, and picturing something makes it so. Now, let's picture ourselves getting out of the van."

The three Hedges did not have to picture it, but they followed the bearded goat and the rest of the volunteers out of the van and onto the lawn in front of the prettier half of the hospital. The members of V.F.D. were stretching their arms and legs after the long drive, and helping the bearded goat remove a big bunch of heart-shaped balloons from the back of the van, but the children merely stood around anxiously and tried to figure out what to do next.

"Where should we go?" Tails asked. "If we walk around the hallways of the hospital singing to people, someone will recognize us."

"That's true," Amy said. "The doctors, nurses, administrators, and patients can't all believe that no news is good news. I'm sure some of them have read this morning's Daily Punctilio."

"Aronec," Sonic said, which meant "And we're not getting any closer to learning anything about V.F.D., or Chocolate Snicket."

"That's true," Tails agreed. "Maybe we need to find a Library of Records, like the bearded goat said."

"But where can we find one?" Amy asked. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"No walk!" Sonic said. Surprised that he would be tired of doing something he loves

"I don't want to start all that walking again either," Tails said, "but I don't see what else we can do."

"O.K., volunteers!" the bearded goat said. He took his guitar out of the van and began playing some cheerful and familiar chords. "Everyone take a heart-shaped balloon and start singing!

"We are Volunteers Fighting Disease,

And we 're cheerful all day long, If someone said that we were sad, That person would be-"

"Attention!" interrupted a voice that seemed to come from the sky. The voice was female but very scratchy and faint, as if the voice were that of a woman talking with a piece of aluminum foil over her mouth. "Your attention please!"

"Shh, everybody!" the bearded goat said, stopping the song. "That's Babs, the Head of Human Resources at the hospital. She must have an important announcement."

"Attention!" the voice said. "This is Babs Head of Human Resources. I have an important announcement."

"Where is she?" Amy asked him, worried that she might recognize the three accused murderers hiding in V.F.D.

"In the hospital someplace," the bearded goat replied. "She prefers communicating over the intercom."

The word "intercom" here refers to someone talking into a microphone someplace and having their voice come out of speakers someplace else, and sure enough the children noticed a small row of square speakers placed on the finished Half of the building, just above the doctor portraits. "Attention!" the voice said again, and it became even scratchier and fainter, as if the woman with the piece of aluminum foil over her mouth had fallen into a swimming pool filled with fizzy soda. This is not a pleasant way to hear someone talk, and yet as soon as Babs made her announcement, the savage breasts of the Hedge orphans were instantly soothed, as if the scratchy and faint voice were a calming piece of music. But the Hedges did not feel better because of the way Babs's voice sounded. The announcement soothed the children's savage breasts because of what it said.

"I need three members of the Volunteers Fighting Disease who are willing to be given a new assignment," said the voice. "Those three volunteers should report immediately to my office, which is the seventeenth door on the left as you enter the finished half of the building. Instead of walking around the hallways of the hospital singing to people, these three volunteers will be working in the Library of Records here at Heimlich Hospital ."

Chapter 4

 _Whether_ you have been sent to see the principal of your school for throwing wet paper towels at the ceiling to see if they stick, or taken to the dentist to plead with him to hollow out one of your teeth so you can smuggle a single page of your latest book past the guards at the airport, it is never a pleasant feeling to stand outside the door of an office, and as the Hedge orphans stood at the door reading "Office of the Head of Human Resources" they were reminded of all the unpleasant offices they had recently visited On their very first day at Prufrock Preparatory School, before they had even met Sonia and Manic Quagmire, the Hedges had visited the office of Vice Principal Router and learned about all of the academy's strict and unfair rules. When they worked at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, the siblings had been summoned to the office of the owner, who made clear just how dreadful their situation really was. And, of course, Tails, Amy, and Sonic had been many, many times to Mr. Silver Poe's office at the bank, where he coughed and talked on the phone and made decisions about the Hedges' future that had not proved to be good ones. But even if the children had not had all these unfortunate experiences in offices, it was perfectly understandable that the Hedge children had to stand for a few moments in front of the seventeenth door on the left, and gather their courage to knock.

"I'm not sure we should take this risk," Tails said. "If Babs has read this morning's edition of The Daily Punctilio, she'll recognize us soon as we walk through the door. We might well be knocking on the door of our jail cell."

"But the Library of Records might be our only hope," Amy said. "We need to find out who Chocolate Snicket really was-where he worked, and how he knew us. If we get some evidence, we can convince people that Count Eggman is still alive and that we're not murderers."

"Curoy," Sonic added, which meant "Besides, the Quagmire triplets are far, far away, and we have only a few pages of their notebooks. We need to find the real meaning of V.F.D."

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "In the Library of Records, we might even solve the mystery of that underground passageway that led from Jerome and Eudora Squalor's apartment to the ashy remains of the Hedge mansion."

"Afficu," Sonic said. She meant something like "And the only way we'll get into the Library of Records is if we talk to Babs, so it's a risk we have to take."

"All right," Tails said, looking down at her sister and smiling. "You've convinced me.

But if Babs begins looking at us suspiciously, we'll leave, agreed?" "Agreed," Amy said.

"Yep," Sonic said, and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" Babs's voice called out.

"It's three members of Volunteers Fighting Disease," Tails replied. "We're here to volunteer at the Library of Records."

"Come in," Babs commanded, and the children opened the door and walked into the office. "I was wondering when someone would show up," the Head of Human Resources continued. "I was just finishing up reading this morning's paper. These three terrible children are running around killing people."

The Hedges looked at one another and were about to run back out the door when they saw something in the office that changed their minds. The office of the Head of Human Resources at Heimlich Hospital was a small one, with a small desk, two small chairs, and a small window decorated with two small curtains. On the windowsill was a small vase of yellow flowers and on the wall was a small tasteful portrait of a man leading a horse to a small pond of fresh water. But it was not the furnishings, the flower arrangement, or the tasteful artwork that made the three orphans stop.

Babs's voice had come from the direction of the desk, which the Hedges had expected, but what they hadn't expected was that Babs was not sitting behind the desk, or on the desk or even beneath it. Instead, a small square intercom speaker-just like the ones on the outside of the hospital-had been placed in the middle of the desk, and it was from this speaker that the speaking had been spoken. It was strange to hear speaking from a speaker instead of from the person who was speaking, but the children realized they could not be recognized if Babs could not see them, so they did not run out of the room.

"We're three children, too," Tails said to the speaker, trying to be as honest as he could "but we'd much rather volunteer in the hospital than-"

"If you're children, then be silent!" Babs's voice said rudely. "In my opinion, children should be seen and not heard. I'm an adult, so it follows that I should be heard and not seen. That's why I work exclusively over the intercom. You will be working exclusively with the most important thing we do in this hospital. Can you guess what it is?"

"Healing sick people?" Amy guessed.

"Be silent!" the speaker commanded. "Children should be seen and not heard, remember? Just because I can't see you doesn't mean you should start babbling about sick people. You're wrong, anyway. The most important thing we do at the hospital is paperwork, and you will be

working at the Library of Records, filing paperwork. I'm sure this will be difficult for you, because children never have any administrative experience."

"Hend," said Sonic in disagreement. Tails was about to explain that his brother meant something along the lines of "Actually, I worked as an administrative assistant at Prufrock Preparatory School," but the intercom speaker was too busy reproving the Hedges, a phrase which here means "shouting 'Be silent!'" at every opportunity.

"Be silent!" the speaker shouted. "Instead of chattering away, report to the Library of Records at once. The Library of Records is located in the basement, at the very bottom of the staircase next to this office. You'll go straight there every morning when the van arrives at Heimlich Hospital , and you'll return straight to the van at the end of each day. The van will take you back home. Are there any questions?"

The Hedges had plenty of questions, of course, but they did not ask them. They knew that if they said even one word, the intercom speaker would command them to be silent, and besides, they were eager to get to the Library of Records, where they hoped to answer the most important questions of their lives.

"Excellent!" the speaker said. "You're learning to be seen instead of heard. Now, get out of this office."

The children got out of that office and quickly found the staircase the speaker had mentioned. The Hedges were glad that the route to the Library of Records was so easy to remember, because Heimlich Hospital seemed like a place where it would be very easy to get lost. The staircase curved this way and that, leading to many doors and corridors, and every ten feet or so, nailed to the wall just below an intercom speaker there was a complicated map of the hospital, filled with arrows, stars, and other symbols the Hedges did not recognize. Every so often, the children would see someone from the hospital walking toward them. Although neither the Volunteers Fighting Disease nor the Head of Human Resources had recognized the three children, it was certain that someone in the hospital must have read The Daily Punctilio, and the Hedges did not want to be seen or heard, and they would have to turn and face the wall, pretending to consult the map so anyone walking by would not see their faces.

"That was close," Tails sighed in relief, when a group of chatting doctors had gone by without even glancing at the youngsters.

"It was close," Amy agreed, "and we don't want it to get any closer. I don't think we should get back on the van at the end of the day-or any other day. Sooner or later we're bound to be recognized."

"You're right," Tails said. "We'd have to walk back through the hospital every day, just to get to the van. But where will we go at night? People will think it is odd if three children are sleeping in the Library of Records."

"Haf," Sonic suggested.

"That's a pretty good idea," Tails replied. "We could sleep in the unfinished half of the hospital. Nobody will go there at night."

"Sleep all by ourselves, in a Half-finished room?" Amy asked. "It'll be cold and dark." "It can't be much worse than the Orphans Shack at Prufrock Prep," Tails said. "Danya," Sonic said, which meant "Or the bedroom at Count Eggman's house."

Amy shuddered, remembering how terrible it was when Count Eggman had been their guardian. "You're right," he said, stopping at a door which read "Library of Records." "The unfinished wing of the hospital can't be that bad."

The Hedges knocked on the door, which opened almost immediately to reveal one of the oldest monkey they had ever met, who looked as if he can die at any second, and he was also wearing one of the tiniest pairs of glasses they had ever seen. Each lens was scarcely bigger than a green pea, and the man had to squint in order to look at them.

"My eyesight isn't what it used to be," he said, "but you appear to be children. And you're very familiar children, too. I'm certain I've seen your faces somewhere before."

The Hedges looked at one another in panic, not knowing whether to dash out of the room or to try to convince the man he was mistaken.

"We're new volunteers," Tails said. "I don't think we've ever met before." "Babs assigned us to work in the Library of Records," Amy said.

"Well, you've come to the right place," the old man said with a wrinkled smile. "My name is Kahn, and I've worked here in the Library of Records for more years than I'd like to count. I'm afraid my eyesight isn't what it used to be, so I asked Babs if some volunteers could help me."

"Wolick," Sonic said.

"My brother says we're very happy to be of assistance," Tails said, "and we are."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Kahn said. "Because there's a lot of work to be done. Come on in and I'll explain what you have to do."

The Hedges walked through the door and found themselves in a small room with nothing much in it but a small table that held a bowl of fresh fruit. "This is the library?" Amy said "Oh no," the man said. "This is just an antechamber, a small room I'm using to store my fruit. If you get hungry during the day, you may help yourself to something out of that bowl Also, this is where the intercom is, so we'll have to report here whenever Babs makes an announcement." He led them across the room to a small door and took a loop of string out of the pocket of his coat. On the loop of string were hundreds of keys, which made tiny clanging noises as they jostled one another. Kahn quickly found the right key to unlock the door. "This," he said with a small smile, "is the Library of Records."

Kahn ushered the children inside a dim room with very low ceilings-so low that Kahn's grayish green fur almost brushed against the top. But although the room was not very tall, it was enormous. The Library of Records stretched out so far in front of the Hedges that they

could scarcely see the opposite wall, or, as the children looked from side to side, the right and left walls. All they could see were big metal file cabinets, with neatly labeled drawers describing the files contained inside. The file cabinets were placed in row after row, as far as the eye could see. The rows were placed very close together, so that the siblings had to walk behind Kahn in single file as he gave them the tour of the room.

"I've organized everything myself," he explained. "The Library of Records contains information not only from Heimlich Hospital , but from all over the area. There's information about everything from poetry to pills, from picture frames to pyramids, and from pudding to psychology-and that's just in the P aisle, which we're walking down right now."

"What an amazing place," Amy said. "Just think of everything we can learn from reading all these files."

"No, no, no," Kahn said, shaking his head sternly. "We're supposed to file this information, not read it. I don't want to see you touching any of these files except when you're working with them. That's why I keep all these file cabinets locked up tight. Now, let me show you exactly where you'll be working."

Kahn led them to the far wall and pointed out a small rectangular hole, just wide enough for Sonic or maybe Amy to crawl through. Beside the hole was a basket with a large stack of paper in it, and a bowl filled with paper clips. "Authorities deposit information into the information chute, which begins outside the hospital and ends right here," he explained, "and I need two people to help me file these deposits in the right place. Here's what you do. First, you remove the paper clips and put them in this bowl. Then you glance at the information and figure out where it goes. Remember, try to read as little as possible." He paused, unclipped a small stack of paper, and squinted at the top page. "For instance," he continued "You only have to read a few words to see that these paragraphs are about the weather last week at Damocles Dock, which is on the shore of some lake someplace. So you would ask me to unlock cabinets in aisle D, for Damocles, or W, for weather, or even P, for paragraphs. It's your choice."

"But won't it be difficult for people to find that information again?" Amy asked. "They won't know whether to look under D, W, or P."

"Then they'll have to look under all three letters," Kahn said. "Sometimes the information you need is not in the most obvious place. Remember, paperwork is the most important thing we do at this hospital, so your job is very important. Do you think you can file these papers correctly? I'd like you to start right away."

"I think we can," Tails said. "But what will the third volunteer do?"

Kahn looked embarrassed and held up the loop of string with all the keys on it. "I lost some of the keys to the file cabinets, and I can be slow so I need someone fast" he admitted,

"Me!" Sonic said

"My brother means that he'd be perfect for that job, because he has vey sharp teeth, and he is very fast." Tails explained

"Your brother?" Kahn said, and scratched his head. "Somehow, I knew that you three are in the same family. I'm dertain I was reading some information about you."

"Do you read the daily punctilio?" Amy asked nervously.

"Never!" Kahn said. "That newspaper is the wort in the world! It always tells lies!"

The hedges sighed in relif. "We can't tell you how happy we are to hear that." Tails sais. "I guess we better get to work"

"Yes yes!" Kahn said "Come on little one, I'll show you where the locked cabinets are and you two can start filling. I wish I can remember….." The old monkey's voice trailed off, and then he snapped his fingers and grinned.

There are many reasons of course why someone might grin and snap their fingures.

If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingures and grin to demonstrate that the music could charm your savage breast.

You could be a spy sending a secreat message using snaps and grins and so on.

But also you might snap your fingures as you had finally remembered something that you had tried to remember. Hal wasn't listening to music, and after nine mounths, six days, fourteen hours, nine minutes and forty five seconds of reasurch I can conclude that he wasn't a spy. So it's sensible to say that he had just remembered something

"I just remembered!" he said "I know why you three seem so familiar." Kahn continued to lead Sonic down another aisle of file cabinets to show her where her teeth could be handy, so his voice floated over to the two older Hedges as if he were speaking on an intercom. "I didn't read it, of course, but there was some information about you in the file about the Snicket files."

Chapter 5

"I just don't understand it." Said Amy, which is something she rarly said

Tails nodded in agreement and then said something he never said "It's a puzzle I'm not sure that we can solve."

"Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity" Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "I must admit I don't have the faintest idea what's going on" and the first time that he had said it her had been brought home from the hospital where he was born, and was looking at his siblings as they leaned over his crib to greet him. This time, he was sitting in the unfinished wing of the hospital where he worked, and was looking at his siblings as they tried to guess what Kahn had meant when he had mentioned "the Snicket

files." If I had been with the children, I would have been able to tell them a long and terrible story about men and women who joined a noble organization only to find their lives wrecked by a greedy man and a lazy newspaper, but the siblings were alone, and all they had of the story were a few pages from the Quagmire notebooks. It was night, and after working all day in the Library of Records, the Hedge orphans had made themselves as comfortable as they could in the Half finished section of Heimlich Hospital, but I'm sorry to say the phrase "as comfortable as they could" here means "not very comfortable at all." Tails had found a few flashlights designed to be used by builders working in dark corners, but when he arranged them to light up their surroundings, the light only made clear just how filthy their surroundings really were. Amy had found some dropcloths, designed to be used by painters who did not want to drip paint on the floor, but when she wrapped them around herself and her brothers, the warmth only made clear just how freezing it was when the evening wind blew through the sheets of plastic that were nailed to the wooden boards. And Sonic had used his teeth to chop up some of the fruit in Kahn's bowl, to make a sort of fruit salad for dinner, but each handful of chopped fruit only made clear just how inappropriate it was to be living in such a bare and lonely place. But even though it was clear to the children how filthy, freezing, and inappropriate their new living quarters were, nothing else seemed clear at all.

"We wanted to use the Library of Records to learn more about Chocolate Snicket," Tails said, "but we might end up learning more about ourselves. What in the world do you think is written about us in that file Kahn mentioned?"

"I don't know," Amy replied, "and I don't think Kahn knows, either. He said he doesn't read any of the files."

"Seerg," Sonic said, which meant "And I was afraid to ask him any more about it."

"Me, too," Tails said. "We simply can't call attention to ourselves. Any minute now, Kahn could learn that we're wanted for murder, and we'd be dragged off to jail before we learned anything more."

"We've already escaped from one jail cell," Amy said. "I don't know if we could do it again."

"I thought that if we had a chance to look over these pages from Manic's and Sonia's notebooks," Tails said, "we would find the answers to our questions, but the Quagmires' notes are very difficult to read."

Amy frowned, and moved a few fragments of the Quagmire pages around as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. "The harpoon gun tore these pages to shreds," he said. "Look what Manic has written here: 'Chocolate Snicket worked for V.F.D., which stands for Volunteer-' and then it's ripped, right in the middle of the sentence."

"And on this page," Tails said, picking up a page I cannot bear to think about, "it reads, "In photographs, and in each public place, Snicket rarely shows his face. "Sonia must have written that one-it's a rhyming couplet."

"This scrap says 'apartment,'" Amy said, "and has what looks like half of a map. That might have to do with the apartment where we lived with Jerome and Eudora Squalor."

"Don't remind me," Tails said, shuddering at the thought of all the misfortune the children had encountered at 667 Dark Avenue .

"Rabave," Sonic said, pointing to one of the pieces of paper.

"This page has two names on it," Tails said. "One name is Emang Con Gutm."

"That's the man who wrote that horrible play Eggman forced us to perform," Amy said.

"I know," Tails said, "but the other name I don't recognize: 'Ana Gram.'"

"Well, the Quagmires were researching Count Eggman and his sinister plot," Amy said. "Maybe Emang Con Gutm is one of Eggman's associates."

"It's probably not the hook-handed fox," Tails said, "or the bald mongoose with the long nose.

Emang Con Gutm is not usually a man's name."

"It could be the name of one of the white-faced women," Amy said.

"Orlando !" Sonic said, which meant "Or the one who looks like neither a man nor a woman."

"Or someone we haven't even met yet," Tails said with a sigh, and turned his attention to another piece of paper. "This page isn't ripped at all, but all it has on it is a long list of dates. It looks like something was going on every twelve weeks or so."

Amy picked up the smallest piece and held it up for his sisters to see. Behind his glasses his eyes looked very sad. "This piece just says 'fire,'" he said quietly, and the three Hedges looked down sadly at the dusty floor. With any word, there are subconscious associations, which simply means that certain words make you think of certain things, even if you don't want to. The word "cake," for example, might remind you of your birthday, and the words "prison warden" might remind you of someone you haven't seen in a very long time. The word "Cream" reminds me of a volunteer organization that was swarming with corruption, and the word "midnight" reminds me that I must keep writing this chapter very quickly, or else I will probably drown. But the Hedges had all sorts of subconscious associations with the word "fire," and none of them were pleasant to think about. The word made the children think of Kahn, who had mentioned something about the Snicket fires that afternoon in the Library of Records. "Fire" made the youngsters think of Manic and Sonia Quagmire, who had lost their parents and their brother, Shadow, in a fire. And, of course, the word "fire" made the Hedges think of the fire that had destroyed their home and had begun the unfortunate journey that had led them to the Half-finished wing of Heimlich Hospital . The three children huddled quietly together under their dropcloths, getting colder and colder as they thought about all the fires and subconscious associations that were in the Hedge lives.

"That file must contain the answers to all these mysteries," Tails said finally. "We need to find out who Chocolate Snicket was, and why he had the same tattoo as Count Eggman."

"And we need to know why he was murdered," Amy added, "and we need to learn the secret of V.F.D."

"Us," Sonic said, which meant "And we need to know why there's a picture of us in the file."

"We have to get our hands on that file," Tails said.

"That's easier said than done," Amy pointed out. "Kahn told us specifically not to touch any of the files we weren't working with, and he'll be right there with us in the Library of Records."

"We'll just have to find a way," Tails replied. "Now, let's try and get a good night's sleep, so we can stay alert tomorrow, and get ahold of the file on the Snicket fires."

Amy and Sonic nodded in agreement, and arranged the dropcloths into a sort of bed, while Tails turned off the flashlights one by one. The three Hedges huddled together for the rest of the night, getting what sleep they could on a filthy floor with a cold wind blowing through their inappropriate home, and in the morning, after a breakfast of leftover fruit salad, they walked to the completed Half of Heimlich Hospital and carefully walked down all those stairs, past the intercom speakers and the confusing maps. Kahn was already in the Library of Records when they arrived, unlocking the file cabinets with his long loop of keys, and immediately Tails and Amy got to work filing the information that had come through the chute during the night, while Sonic turned her tooths' attention to the file cabinets that needed to be opened. But the Hedges' minds were not on filing, or on file cabinets. Their minds were on the file.

Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of "systematically assisting Sisyphus's stealthy, cyst-susceptible sister," which is easier done than said. But it is frustrating to be reminded of this fact. As Tails filed a piece of paper containing information on cuttlefish under M, for mollusks, she said to herself, "I'll just walk down the S aisle and look under Snicket," but Kahn was already in the S aisle, filing away paintings of sewing machines, and he could not do what he said. As Amy filed a survey of thimbles under P, for protection of the thumb, he said to himself, "I'll just walk down the F aisle and look under F, for 'fires,'" but by that time Kahn had moved to the F aisle, and was opening a file cabinet to rearrange biographies of famous Finnish firermen. And Sonic twisted her teeth this way and that, trying to open one of the locked file cabinets in the H aisle, thinking that perhaps the file was inside, filed under Hedges, but when the lock finally broke just after lunch, the youngest sibling opened the cabinet and saw that it was absolutely empty.

"Nil," Sonic said, as the three children took a short fruit break in the antechamber.

"Me neither," Amy said. "But how can we get ahold of the file, when Kahn is always around?"

"Maybe we can just ask him to find it for us," Tails said. "If this were a regular library, we would ask the librarian for help. In a Library of Records, maybe we should ask Kahn."

"You can ask me anything you want," Kahn said, walking into the antechamber "but first I have to ask you something." He walked over to the children and pointed at one of the fruits. "Is that a plum or a persimmon?" he asked. "My eyesight isn't what it used to be, I'm afraid."

"It's a plum," Tails said, handing it to him.

"Oh good," Kahn replied, looking it over for bruises. "I was not in the mood for a persimmon. Now, what is your question?"

"We had a question about a certain file," Amy began carefully, not wanting Kahn to become suspicious. "I know it's not customary for us to read the files, but if we were very curious, would it be O.K. to make an exception?"

Kahn bit into the plum and frowned. "Why would you want to read one of the files?" he asked. "Children should read happy books with bright pictures, not official information from the Library of Records."

"But we're interested in official information," Tails said, "and we're so busy filing things away that we don't get a chance to read anything in the files. That's why we were hoping to take one home with us and read it."

Kahn shook his head. "Paperwork is the most important thing we do in this hospital," he said sternly. "That's why the files are only allowed out of the room if there's a very important reason. For example-"

But the Hedges did not get to hear an example, because Kahn was interrupted by a voice coming over the intercom. "Attention!" the voice said, and the children turned to face a small square speaker. "Attention! Attention!"

The three siblings looked at one another in shock and horror, and then at the wall where the speaker was hanging. The voice coming over the intercom was not Babs's. It was a faint voice, and it was a scratchy voice, but it was not the voice of the Head of Human Resources at Heimlich Hospital . It was a voice that the Hedges heard wherever they went, no matter where they lived or who tried to protect them, and even though the children had heard this voice so many times before, they had never gotten used to its sneering tone, as if the person talking were telling a joke with a horrible and violent punch line. "Attention!" the voice said again, but the orphans did not have to be told to pay attention to the terrible voice of Count Eggman.

"Babs has resigned from Heimlich Hospital ," said the voice, and the siblings felt as if they could see the cruel smile Eggman always had on his face when he was telling lies. "She decided to pursue a career as a stuntwoman, and has begun throwing herself off buildings immediately. My name is Mattathias, and I am the new Head of Human Resources. I will be conducting a complete inspection of every single employee here at Heimlich Hospital , beginning immediately. That is all."

"An inspection," Kahn repeated, finishing his plum. "What nonsense. They should finish the other Half of this hospital, instead of wasting time inspecting everything."

"What happens during an inspection?" Tails asked.

"Oh, they just come and look you over," Kahn said carelessly, and began walking back to the Library of Records. "We'd better get back to work. There is a lot more information to file."

"We'll be along in a moment," Amy promised. "I'm not quite done with my fruit."

"Well, hurry up," Kahn said, and left the anteroom. The Hedges looked at one another in worry and dismay.

"He's found us again," Tails said, talking quietly so Kahn could not hear them. He could barely hear her own voice over the sound of her heart pounding with fear.

"He must know we're here," Amy agreed. "That's why he's doing the inspection-so he can find us and snatch us away."

"Tell!" Sonic said.

"Who can we tell?" Amy asked. "Everyone thinks Count Eggman is dead. They won't believe three children if we say that he's disguised himself as Mattathias, the new Head of Human Resources."

"Particularly three children who are on the front page of The Daily Punctilio," Tails added, "wanted for murder. Our only chance is to get that file on the Snicket fires, and see if it has any evidence that will bring Eggman to justice."

"But files aren't allowed out of the Library of Records," Amy said. "Then we'll have to read them right here," Tails said.

"That's easier said than done," Amy pointed out. "We don't even know what letter to look under, and Kahn will be right in the room with us all day long."

"Night!" Sonic said.

"You're right, Sonic," Tails said. "Kahn is here all day long, but he goes home at night. When it gets dark, we'll sneak back over here from the Half-finished wing. It's the only way we'll be able to find the file."

"You're forgetting something," Amy said. "The Library of Records will be locked up tight. Kahn locks all of the file cabinets, remember?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Tails admitted. "I can invent one lockpick, but I'm not sure I'll have time to invent enough lockpicks to work on all those file cabinets."

"Deashew!" Sonic said, which meant something like "And it takes me several hours to open one cabinet with my teeth!"

"Without the keys, we'll never get the file," Amy said, "and without the file, we'll never defeat Count Eggman. What can we do?"

The children sighed, and thought as hard as they could, staring in front of them as they did so, and as soon as they stared in front of them they saw something that gave them an idea. The thing they saw was small, and round, and had colorful and shiny skin, and the youngsters could see that it was a persimmon. But the Hedges knew that if someone's eyesight

wasn't what it used to be, it might look like a plum. The Hedge orphans sat and stared at the persimmon, and began to think how they might fool someone into thinking one thing was really another.

Chapter 6

This is not a tale of Lemony Snicket. It is useless to tell the Snicket story, because it happened so very long ago, and because there is nothing anyone can do about the way that it had turned out, so the only reason I could possibly have for jotting it down in the margins of these pages would be to make this book even more unpleasant, unbealivable and unnerving that it already is. This is a story about Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge, and how they discovered something in the Library of Records of Heimlich Hospital that changed their lives forever and still gives me the heebie-jeebies whenever I am alone at night STOP. But if this were a book about me, instead of about the three children who would soon run into someone they had hoped never to see again, I might pause for a moment and tell you about something I did many years ago that still troubles me. It was a necessary thing to do, but it was not a nice thing, and even now, I get a small quiver of shame in my stomach whenever I remember it. I might be doing something I enjoy-walking along the promenade deck of a ship, or looking through a telescope at the aurora borealis, or wandering into a bookstore and placing my books on the highest place in the shelf, so that no one will be tempted to buy and read them-when I will suddenly remember this thing I did, and think to myself, Was it really necessary? Was it absolutely necessary to steal that sugar bowl from Eudora Squalor?

The Hedge orphans were experiencing similar quivers that afternoon, as they finished up the day's work in the Library of Records. Every time Tails put a file in its proper place, he would feel his hair ribbon in his pocket, and get a quiver in his stomach as he thought about what he and his siblings were up to. Amy would take a stack of papers from the basket in front of the deposit chute, and instead of placing the paper clips in the small bowl, she would keep them hidden in her hand, feeling a quiver in his stomach as she thought about the trick she and her brothers were going to play. And whenever Kahn turned his back, and Amy passed the paper clips to Sonic, the youngest Hedge felt a quiver in his stomach as he thought about the sneaky way they were going to return to the Library of Records that night. By the time Kahn was locking up the file cabinets for the day with his long loop of keys, the three Hedge children had enough quivers in their stomach to attend a Quivery Stomach Festival, if there had been one in the area that afternoon.

"Is it absolutely necessary to do this?" Tails murmured to Amy, as the three children followed Kahn out of the library into the anteroom. He took his hair ribbon out of his pocket and smoothed it out, making sure it didn't have any tangles. "It's not a nice thing to do."

"I know," Amy answered, holding her hand out so Sonic could hand back the paper clips. "I have a quiver in my stomach just thinking about it. But it's the only way we can get our hands on that file."

"Eggman," Sonic said grimly. She meant "Before Mattathias gets his hands on us," and as soon as he was finished with his sentence, Mattathias's scratchy voice came over the intercom.

"Attention! Attention!" the voice said, as Kahn and the Hedges looked up at the square speaker. "This is Mattathias, the new Head of Human Resources. Inspections are over for the day but will continue tomorrow."

"What nonsense," Kahn muttered, putting the loop of keys down on the table. The Hedges looked at one another, and then at the keys, as Mattathias continued his announcement.

"Also," the speaker said, "if anyone in the hospital has any valuables of any kind, please bring them to the Human Resources office for safekeeping. Thank you."

"My eyeglasses are somewhat valuable," Kahn said, taking them off, "but I'm not going to bring them to the Human Resources office. I might not ever see them again."

"That's probably true," Tails said, shaking her head at Mattathias's audacity, a word which here means "attempt to steal valuables from hospital employees, in addition to snatching the Hedge fortune."

"Besides," Kahn said, smiling at the children and reaching for his coat, "nobody's going to steal anything from me. You three are the only people I see at the hospital, and I trust you absolutely. Now, where did I put my keys?"

"Here they are," Tails said, and the quiver in his stomach got worse. He held up his hair ribbon, which had been tied into a circle to look like a loop of string. Hanging from the ribbon was a long row of paper clips, which Sonic had fashioned into different shapes with his teeth when Kahn wasn't looking. The result looked something like Kahn's loop of keys, the way a horse looks something like a cow, or a woman in a green dress looks something like a pine tree, but there was no way anyone would look at Tails' hair ribbon full of chewed-up paper clips and think it was a ring of keys-unless, of course, their eyesight was not what it used to be. The three children waited as Kahn squinted at what Tails was holding.

"Those are my keys?" Kahn said doubtfully. "I thought I put them down on the table."

"Oh, no," Amy said quickly, standing in front of the table so Kahn wouldn't catch a glimpse of his real keys. "Tails has them."

"Here," Tails said, moving them back and forth so they would be even harder to squint at, "why don't I put them in your coat pocket for you?"

"Thank you," Kahn said, as Tails dropped them into his overcoat pocket. He looked at the Hedges, his tiny eyes shining with gratitude. "That's another way you three have helped me. My eyesight's not what it used to be, you know, so I'm glad I can rely on such good volunteers. Well, good night, children. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good night, Kahn," Amy replied. "We're just going to have one last piece of fruit here in the anteroom."

"Don't spoil your dinner," Kahn said. "It's supposed to be a very cold evening, so I bet your parents have cooked up a nice hot meal." Kahn smiled and shut the door behind him, leaving the children alone with the real keys to the Library of Records and the quivery feeling still in their stomachs.

"Someday," Tails said quietly, "we'll apologize to Kahn for playing a trick on him, and explain why we had to break the rules. This wasn't a nice thing to do, even though it was necessary."

"And we'll return to the Last Chance General Store," Amy said, "and explain to the shopkeeper why we had to run away."

"Twisp," Sonic said firmly, which meant "But not until we get ahold of the file, solve all these mysteries, and prove our innocence."

"You're right, Sonic," Tails said, with a sigh. "Let's get started. Amy, see if you can find the right key for the Library door."

Amy nodded, and carried Kahn's keys over to the door. Not too long ago, when the Hedges had been staying with Aunt Sticks by the shores of Lake Lachrymose , Amy had been in a situation in which she had to match up a key to a locked door very, very quickly, and since then he had been quite good at it. She looked at the lock of the door, which had a very short and narrow keyhole, and then looked at the loop of string, which had one very short and narrow key, and in no time at all the children were reentering the Library of Records and looking down the dim aisles of file cabinets.

"I'm going to lock the door behind us," Amy said, "so that nobody will get suspicious if they happen to walk into the anteroom."

"Like Mattathias," said Tails with a shudder. "On the intercom he said that they were stopping the inspections for the day, but I bet he's really still looking."

"Vapey," Sonic said, which meant "Then let's hurry." "Let's start with the S aisle," Tails said. "For Snicket."

"Right," Amy said, locking the door with a rattle. The three children found the S aisle and began walking past the file cabinets, reading the labels on them to figure out which one to open.

"Sauce to Saxifrage," Amy read out loud. "That means that anything that falls alphabetically between the word 'sauce' and the word 'saxifrage' will be in this cabinet. That would be fine if we wanted the Sawmill file."

"Or the Sauna file," Tails said. "Let's move on."

The children moved on, their footsteps echoing off the low ceilings of the room.

"Scarab to Scavenger," Amy said, reading one farther down the aisle. Sonic and Tails shook their heads, and the Hedges kept moving.

"Secretary to Sediment," Tails read. "We're still not there."

"Kalm," Sonic said, which meant "I can't read very well, but I think this one says 'Sequel to Serenity.'"

"You're right, Sonic," Amy said, smiling at his sister. "It's the wrong one." "Shed to Sheepshank," Tails read.

"Shellac to Sherbet," Amy read, walking farther down the aisle. "Shipwreck to Shrimp."

"Sicily to Sideways."

"Skylight to Slob." "Sludge to Smoke." "Snack to Snifter." "Snowball to Sober." "Sonnet to Spackle."

"Wait!" Amy cried. "Back up! Snicket is between Snack and Snifter."

"You're right," Tails said, stepping back to find the right cabinet. "I was so distracted by all the strange file names that I forgot what we were looking for. Here it is, Snack to Snifter. Let's hope the file we're looking for is here."

Amy looked at the lock on the file cabinet, and found the right key on Kahn's loop on only the third try. "It should be in the bottom drawer," Amy said, "close to Snifter. Let's look."

The Hedges looked. A snifter is a type of glass, usually meant for holding brandy, although it is also the term for a strong wind. Plenty of words are close to "snifter" in the alphabet, and the children found many of them. There was a file on sniffing, which seemed to have many photographs of noses. There was a file on Snell's Law, which states that a ray of light passing from one uniform medium to another produces an identical ratio between the sine of the angle of incidence and the sine of the angle of refraction, which Amy already knew. There was a file on the inventor of the sneaker, whom Tails admired very much, and one on snicking, which is something Sonic had done many times with her teeth. But there was not a single scrap of paper marked Snicket. The children sighed in disappointment, and shut the drawer of the file cabinet so Amy could lock it again.

"Let's try the C aisle, for Chocolate," Tails suggested.

"Shh," Sonic said.

"No, Sonic," Amy said gently. "I don't think the H aisle is a good bet. Why would Kahn have filed it under H?"

"Shh," Sonic insisted, pointing at the door, and her siblings knew instantly that they had misunderstood her. Usually when Sonic said "Shh," she meant something along the lines of "I think the H aisle might be a good place to look for the file," but this time she meant something more along the lines of "Be quiet! I think I hear someone walking into the anteroom of the Library of Records." Sure enough, when the Hedges listened closely, they could hear the clomping of some odd, teetering footsteps, as if someone were walking on very thin stilts. The footsteps grew closer and closer, and then stopped, and as the three children held their breath, the door to the Library rattled as someone tried to open the door.

"Maybe it's Kahn," Tails whispered, "trying to unlock the door with a paper clip." "Maybe it's Mattathias," Amy whispered, "looking for us."

"Janitor," Sonic whispered.

"Well, whoever it is," Tails said, "we'd better hurry to the C aisle."

The Hedges tiptoed across the low-ceilinged room to the C aisle, and walked down it quickly, reading the labels of the file cabinets.

"Cab to Cetologist."

"CD to Chow." "Nersai."

"That's it!" Amy whispered. "Chocolate will be in CD to Chow."

"We hope," Tails said, as the door rattled again. Amy hurried to find the right key, and the children opened the top drawer to look for Chocolate. As Tails knew, CD is a kind of information storeage typically used to play music and as Amy knew, Cetologist is the branch of zoology dealing with whales and dolphins., and once again there were plenty of files between these two, but although the children found plenty of information about Chocolate as in the candy, but not the mysterious hybrid."

"Fire!" Amy whispered, shutting and locking the file cabinet. "Let's head to the F aisle." "And hurry," Tails said. "It sounds like the person in the anteroom is picking the lock."

It was true. The Hedges paused for a moment and heard a muffled scratching from behind the door, as if something long and thin were being stuck in the keyhole to try to unlock the lock. Tails knew, from when he and his siblings lived with Uncle Knuckles, that a lockpick can often take a long time to work properly, even if it has been made by one of the world's greatest inventors, but the children nonetheless moved to the F aisle as fast as their tiptoes could carry them.

"Fabian to Fact." "Fainting to Fangs." "Fatalism to Faulkner." "Fear to Fermat." "Ficus to Filth."

"Fin de Siécle to Fissle-here it is!"

Once more, the Hedges hurried to find the proper key, and then the proper drawer and then the proper file. "Fin de siéecle" is a term for a time in history when a century is drawing to a close, and "fissle" is a fancy word for a rustling noise, like the one that continued to come from behind the locked door as the children looked frantically for Fire. But the papers went right from Finland to Firmament, without a single word on Fire in between.

"What will we do?" Tails asked, as the door began to rattle again. "Where else could the file be?"

"Let's try to think," Amy said. "What did Kahn say about the file? We know it has to do with Chocolate Snicket, and with fire."

"Prem!" Sonic said, which meant "But we looked under Snicket, Chocolate, and Fire already."

"There must be something else," Tails said. "We have to find this file. It has crucial information about Chocolate Snicket and V.F.D."

"And about us," Amy said. "Don't forget that." The three children looked at one another. "Hedge!" Sonic whispered.

Without another word, the orphans ran to the B aisle, and hurried past Habit to Harbor , Hacker to Hamlet, and Harp to Hazelnut, Hb pencil to Head stopping at Heal to Hero. As the door continued to fissle behind them, Amy tried nine keys in a row before finally opening the cabinet, and there, between the latin word of Ivy, and a garden animal, the children found a folder marked "Hedge."

"It's here," Amy said, taking it out of the drawer with trembling hands. "What does it say? What does it say?" Tails asked in excitement. "Look," Amy said. "There's a note on the front."

"Read it!" Sonic said in a frantic whisper, as the door began to shake violently on its hinges. Whoever was on the other side of the door was obviously getting frustrated with trying to pick the lock.

Amy held up the file so he could see what the note said in the dim light of the room. "'All thirteen pages of the Snicket file,'" she read, '"have been removed from the Library of Records for the official investigation.'" She looked up at her brothers, and they could see that, behind her glasses, her eyes were filling with tears. "That must be when Kahn saw our picture," she said. "When he removed the file and gave it to the official investigators." He dropped the file on the floor and then sat down beside it in despair. "There's nothing here."

"Yes there is!" Tails said. "Look!"

The Hedges looked at the file where Amy had dropped it on the ground. There, behind the note, was a single sheet of paper. "It's page thirteen," Tails said, looking at a number typed in a corner of the paper. "The investigators must have left it behind by mistake."

"That's why you should keep paper clips on papers that belong together," Amy said, "even when you file them. But what does the page say?"

With a long crackle!and a loud bang,the door to the Library of Records was knocked off its hinges, and fell to the floor of the enormous room as if it had fainted. But the children paid no attention. Tails, Amy, and Sonic all sat and looked at page thirteen of the file, too amazed to even listen to the odd, teetering footsteps as the intruder entered the room and began to walk along the aisles of file cabinets.

Page thirteen of the Hedge file was not a crowded sheet of paper-there was just one photograph stapled into place, below one sentence of type. But sometimes it takes only a photograph and a sentence to make an author cry himself to sleep even years after the photograph was taken, or to make three siblings sit and stare at a page for a long time, as if an entire book were printed on one sheet of paper.

There were four people in the photograph, standing together outside a building the Hedges recognized immediately. It was 667 Dark Avenue , where the orphans had lived with Jerome and Eudora Squalor for a brief time, until it became another place too treacherous for the children to stay. The first person in the photograph was Chocolate Snicket, who was looking at the photographer and smiling. Standing next to Chocolate was a rabbit who was turned away from the camera, so the children could not see his face, only one of his hands, which was clutching a notebook and pen, as if the obscured man were a writer of some sort. The children had not seen Chocolate Snicket since he was murdered, of course, and the writer appeared to be someone they had never seen at all. But standing next to these two people were another two people the Hedge children thought they would never see again. Bundled up in long coats, looking cold but happy, were the Hedge parents.

"Because of the evidence discussed on page nine," read the sentence above the photograph, "experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown."

 _R_

Seven

 _"I_ never thought I'd live to see the day," Tails said, and took another look at page thirteen of the file. The Hedge parents looked back at her, and for a moment it seemed to Tails his father would step out of the photograph and say, "There you are, Ed. Where have you been?" Ed was short for Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, and it was a special nickname only used by his father, but the man in the photograph did not move, of course, but only stood smiling in front of 667 Dark Avenue.

"Me neither," Amy said. "I never thought we'd see our parents again." The middle Hedge looked at her mother's coat, which had a secret pocket on the inside. In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know. Because Amy was so interested in reading, she had promised that someday she would give the pocket dictionary to her, and now it seemed to Amy that her mother was about to reach into her coat and put the small, leatherbound book in her hand.

"Neither me," Sonic said. He looked at her parents' smiles, and suddenly remembered, for the first time since the fire, a song that her mother and father used to sing together, when it was time for Sonic to go

to sleep. The song was called "The Butcher Boy," and the Hedge parents would take turns singing the verses, her mother singing in her breathy, high voice, and her father in his, which was as low and deep as a foghorn. "The Butcher Boy" was the perfect way for Sonic to end the day, safe and cozy in the Hedge crib.

"This photograph must have been taken a long time ago," Tails said. "Look how much younger they look. They aren't even wearing their wedding rings."

"'Because of the evidence discussed on page nine,'" Amy said, reading the sentence typed above the photograph, "'experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown.'" He stopped, and looked at his sisters. "What does that mean?" he said, in a very faint voice. "Does that mean one of our parents is still alive?"

"Well, well, well," said a familiar and sneering voice, and the children heard the odd, tottering footsteps walk straight toward them. "Look what we have here."

The Hedge orphans had been so shocked by what they had found that they had forgotten about the person breaking into the Library of Records, and now they looked up to see a tall skinny figure walking down the B aisle STOP. It was a person they had seen recently, and one they had hoped never to see again. There are many different ways of

describing this person, including "Count Eggman's girlfriend," "the Hedge children's former guardian," "the city's sixth most important financial advisor," "a former resident of 667 Dark Avenue," and several phrases that are far too nasty to be placed in a book. But the name she preferred was the one that came snarling out of her lipsticked mouth.

"I am Eudora Gigi Geniveve Squalor," said Eudora Gigi Geniveve Squalor, as if the Hedges would ever forget her, no matter how hard they tried. She stopped walking and stood in front of the Hedges, who saw immediately why her footsteps had been so odd and tottering. For as long as the children had known her, Eudora Squalor had been a slave to fashion, a phrase which here means "dressed in incredibly expensive, and often incredibly absurd, outfits." This evening she was wearing a long coat made from the fur of a number of animals that had been killed in particularly unpleasant ways, and she was carrying a handbag shaped like an eye, just like the tattoo her boyfriend had on his left ankle. She wore a hat with a small veil that hung in front of her face, as if she had blown her nose with a black lacy handkerchief, and then forgotten to remove it, and on her feet she had a pair of shoes with stiletto heels. A stiletto is a small, slender knife resembling a dagger, such as might be carried by a carnival performer or a murderer, and the word "stiletto" has been used to describe a woman's shoe with a very long and narrow heel. In this case, however, the phrase "shoes with stiletto heels" actually refers to a pair of shoes made with a small, slender knife where each heel should be. The stilettos were pointing straight down, so that Eudora viciously stabbed the floor of the Library of Records with each step, and occasionally the stilettos stuck, so the wicked woman had to pause and yank them out of the floor, which explained why her footsteps were so odd and tottering. These shoes happened to be the absolute latest fashion, but the Hedges had more important things to do than leaf through magazines describing what was in and what was out, so they could only stare at Eudora's shoes and wonder why she was wearing footwear that was so violent and impractical.

"This is a pleasant surprise," Eudora said. "Eggman asked me to break in here and destroy the Hedge file, but now we can destroy the Hedges as well."

The children looked at each other in shock. "You and Eggman know about the file?" Tails asked.

Eudora laughed in a particularly nasty way, and, from behind her veil, smiled a particularly nasty smile. "Of course we know about it," she snarled. "That's why I'm here-to destroy all thirteen pages." She took one odd, tottering step toward the Hedges. "That's why we destroyed Chocolate Snicket." She took another stabbing step down the aisle. "And that's why we're going to destroy you." She looked down at her shoe and shook her foot wildly to get the blade out of the library floor. "Heimlich Hospital is about to have three new patients," she said, "but I'm afraid it'll be too late for any doctor to save their lives."

Amy stood up, and followed his sisters as they began to step away from the slave to fashion who was moving slowly toward them. "Who survived the fire?" he asked Eudora, holding up the page from the file. "Is one of our parents alive?"

Eudora frowned, and teetered on her stiletto heels as she tried to snatch the page away. "Did you read the file?'"she demanded in a terrible voice. " What does the file say?"

"You'll never find out!" Tails cried, and turned to her siblings. "Run!"

The Hedges ran, straight down the aisle past the rest of the H files, rounding the corner past the cabinet that read "Hymn to Hyzone" and around a corner to the section of the library where all of the C files were stored.

"We're running the wrong way," Amy said.

"Egress," Sonic agreed, which meant something along the lines of, "Amy is right-the exit is the other way."

"So is Eudora," Tails replied. "Somehow, we'll have to go around her."

"I'm coming for you!" Eudora cried, her voice coming over the top of the file cabinets. "You'll never escape, orphans!"

The Hedges paused at the cabinet reading "Conch to Condy's Fluid," which are a fancy seashell and a complex chemical compound, and listened as Eudora's heels clattered in pursuit.

"We're lucky she's wearing those ridiculous shoes," Amy said. "We can run much faster than she can."

"As long as she doesn't think of taking them off," Tails said. "She's almost as clever as she is greedy."

"Shh!" Sonic said, and the Hedges listened as Eudora's footsteps abruptly stopped.

The children huddled together as they heard Eggman's girlfriend mutter to herself for a moment, and then the three youngsters began to hear a terrifying sequence of sounds. There was a long, screechy creak,and then a booming crash,and then another long, screechy creak,and another booming crash,and the pair of sounds continued, getting louder and louder. The youngsters looked at one another in puzzlement, and then, just in the nick of time, the oldest Hedge figured out what the sound was.

"She's knocking over the file cabinets!" Tails cried, pointing over the top of Confetti to Consecration. "They're toppling over like dominos!"

Amy and Sonic looked where their sister was pointing and saw that she was right. Eudora had pushed over one file cabinet, which had pushed over another, which had pushed over another, and now the heavy metal cabinets were crashing toward the children like a wave crashing on the shore. Tails grabbed her siblings and pulled them out of the path of a falling file cabinet. With a creak and a crash, the cabinet fell to the floor, right where they had been standing. The three children breathed a sigh of relief, having just narrowly avoided being crushed beneath files on congruent triangles, coniferous trees, conjugated verbs, and two hundred other topics.

"I'm going to flatten you!" Eudora called, starting on another line of cabinets. "Eggman and I are going to have a romantic breakfast of Hedge pancakes!"

"Run!" Sonic cried, but her siblings needed no urging. The three children hurried down the rest of the C aisle, as the cabinets creaked and crashed all around them.

"Where can we go?" Tails cried.

"To the D aisle!" Amy answered, but changed his mind as he saw another row of cabinets begin to topple. "No! The E aisle!"

"B?" Tails asked, finding it difficult to hear over the sounds of the cabinets.

"E!" Amy cried. "E as in Exit!" The Hedges ran down E as in Exit, but when they reached the last cabinet, the row was becoming F as in Falling File Cabinets, G as in Go the Other Way! and H as in How in the World Are We Going to Escape? Before long, the children found themselves as far from the anteroom door as they possibly could be. As the cabinets crashed around them, and Eudora cackled wildly and stabbed the floor in pursuit, the three youngsters found themselves in the area of the Library of Records where information

was deposited. As the room creaked and crashed around them, the siblings looked first at the basket of papers, then at the bowl of paper clips, then the mouth of the chute, and finally at one another.

"Tails," Amy said hesitantly, "do you think you can invent something out of paper clips and a basket that could help us get out of here?"

"I don't have to," Tails said. "That chute will serve as an exit." "But you won't fit in there," Amy said. "I'm not even sure I will."

"You're never going to get out of this room alive, you imbeciles!" Eudora cried, using a horrible word in her horrible voice.

"We'll have to try," Tails said. "Sonic, go first."

"Prapil," Sonic said doubtfully, but she went first, crawling easily into the chute and staring out through the darkness at her siblings.

"Now you, Amy," Tails said, and Amy, removing her glasses so they wouldn't break, followed her brother. It was a tight fit, and it took some manuevering, but eventually the middle Hedge worked his way through the mouth of the chute.

"This won't work," Amy said to Tails, peering around him. "It'll be tough to crawl up through the chute, the way it's slanted. Besides, there's no way you'll fit."

"Then I'll find another way," Tails said. His voice was calm, but Amy and Sonic could see, through the hole in the wall, that his eyes were wide with fear.

"That's out of the question," Amy said. "We'll climb back out, and the three of us will escape together."

"We can't risk it," Tails said. "Eudora won't catch all of us, not if we split up. You two take page thirteen and go up the chute, and I'll get out another way. We'll meet up in the unfinished wing."

"No!" Sonic cried.

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "This is what happened with the Quagmires, remember?

When we left them behind, they were snatched away."

"The Quagmires are safe now," Tails reminded him. "Don't worry, I'll invent a solution."

The eldest Hedge gave her siblings a small smile, and reached into his pocket so he could tie up his bangs and put the levers and gears of his inventing mind into motion. But there was no ribbon in her pocket. As his trembling fingers explored his empty pocket, he remembered he had used her ribbon to fool Kahn with a fake loop of keys. Tails felt a quiver in his stomach as he remembered, but he had no time to feel bad about the trick he had played. With sudden horror, he heard a creak right behind her, and he jumped out of the

way just in time to avoid the crash. A file cabinet labeled "Linguistics to Lions" fell against the wall, blocking the mouth of the chute.

"Tails!" Amy cried. She and her brother tried to push the cabinet aside, but the strength of a thirteen-year-old girl and her baby brother were no match against a metal case holding files on everything from the history of language to a large carnivorous feline found in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of India .

"I'm O.K.," Tails called back.

"Not for long you're not!" Eudora snarled, from a few aisles over.

Amy and Sonic sat in the dark chute and heard their sister's faint voice as he called to them. "Leave me here!" he insisted. "I'll meet you back in our filthy, cold, inappropriate home."

The two younger Hedges huddled together at the entrance of the chute, but it is useless for me to describe to you how desperate and terrified they felt. There is no reason to describe how horrible it was to hear Tails' frantic footsteps across the Library of Records, or the odd, tottering ones of Eudora as she pursued the eldest Hedge in her stiletto heels, creaking and crashing file cabinets with every stabbing step. It is unnecessary to describe the cramped and difficult journey Amy and Sonic made up the chute, which was slanted so steeply that it felt to the two orphans like they were crawling up a large mountain covered in ice instead of a fairly short chute used for depositing information. It is ineffectual to describe how the two children felt when they finally reached the end of the chute, which was another hole, carved into the outside wall of Heimlich Hospital , and found that Kahn was right when he said it was to be a particularly cold evening. And it is absolutely futile-a word which here means "useless, unnecessary, and ineffectual, because there is no reason for it"-to describe how they felt as they sat in the Half-finished section of the hospital, with drop cloths wrapped around them to keep them warm and flashlights lit around them to keep them company, and waited for Tails to show up, because Amy and Sonic Hedge were not thinking of these things.

The two younger Hedges sat together, clutching page thirteen of the Hedge file, as the night grew later and later, but they were not thinking about the noises they heard coming from the Library of Records, or about the journey up the chute or even about the icy breeze as it blew through the plastic sheets and chilled the Hedge bones. Amy and Sonic were thinking about what Tails had said, when he saw the piece of paper they were clutching now. "I never thought I'd live to see the day," Tails had said, and his two siblings knew that the phrase was just another way of saying "I'm very surprised" or "I'm extremely flabbergasted" or "This blows my mind beyond belief." But now, as the two Hedges waited more and more anxiously for their sister, Amy and Sonic began to fear that the phrase Tails used was more appropriate than she ever would have guessed. As the first pale rays of the morning sun began to shine on the unfinished Half of the hospital, the Hedges grew more and more frightened that their sister would not live to see the day.

Chapter 8

Heimlich hospital is gone now, and will never be rebuilt. If you wanted to visit it, you would have to drive for several hours as it is far, far away from the nearest town. Once you arrive at it's wreackage the few scraps of the building that have survived are covered with a thick and prickly type of ivy called kudzu, which makes it difficult to see what the hospital looked like when the Hedges first arrived in the V.F.D. van. The confusing maps have been gnawed off the walls of the sagging staircases, so it is very hard to imagine how troublesome it was to find

one's way through all of the areas of the building. And the intercom system has long since crumbled away, with only a handful of square speakers left sitting among the ashen rubble, so it is impossible to imagine just how unnerving it was when Amy and Sonic heard the latest announcement from Mattathias.

"Attention!" Mattathias announced. There were no intercom speakers installed in the unfinished Half of the hospital, so the two younger Hedges had to listen very hard to hear the scratchy voice of their enemy coming from one of the outdoor speakers.

"Attention! Attention! This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources. I am canceling the remainder of the hospital inspections. We have found what we were looking for." There was a pause as Mattathias moved away from the microphone, and as Amy and Sonic listened very hard, they could hear the faint, faint noise of triumphant, high pitched laughter coming from the Head of Human Resources.

"Excuse me," he continued, when his giggling fit was over. "To continue, please be aware that two of the three Hedge murderers- Amy and Son-I mean, Amelia, and Sammy Hedge-have been spotted in the hospital. If you see any children whom you recognize from The Daily Punctilio, please capture them and notify the police." Mattathias stopped talking and began to cackle again, until the children heard the voice of Eudora Squalor whispering, "Darling, you forgot to turn off the intercom." Then there was a click, and everything was silent.

"They caught him," Amy said. Now that the sun had risen, it wasn't very cold in the Half- finished section of the hospital, but the middle Hedge shivered nonetheless. "That's what Mattathias meant when he said that they had found what they were looking for."

"Danger," Sonic said grimly.

"He certainly is," Amy said. "We have to rescue Tails before it's too late." "Virm," Sonic said, which meant "But we don't know where he is."

"He must be somewhere in the hospital," Amy said, "otherwise Mattathias wouldn't still be here. He and Eudora are probably hoping to capture us, too."

"Ranee," Sonic said.

"And the file," Amy agreed, taking page thirteen out of her pocket, where he had been storing it for safekeeping along with the scraps of the Quagmire notebooks. "Come on, Sonic. We've got to find our brother and get him out of there."

"Lindersto," Sonic said. he meant "That'll be tough. We'll have to wander around the hospital looking for him, while other people will be wandering around the hospital, looking for us."

"I know," Amy said glumly. "If anyone recognizes us from The Daily Punctilio, we'll be in jail before we can help Tails."

"Disguise?" Sonic said.

"I don't know how," Amy said, looking around the Half-finished room. "All we have here is some flashlights and a few dropcloths. I suppose if we wrapped the dropcloths around us and put the flashlights on top of our heads, we could try to disguise ourselves as piles of construction materials."

"Gidoost," Sonic said, which meant "But piles of construction materials don't wander around hospitals."

"Then we'll have to walk into the hospital without disguises," Amy said. "We'll just have to be extra careful."

Sonic nodded emphatically, a word which here means "as if she thought being extra careful was a very good plan," and Amy nodded emphatically back. But as they left the Half- finished wing of the hospital, the two children felt less and less emphatic about what they were doing. Ever since that terrible day at the beach when Mr. Silver Poe brought them news of the fire, all three Hedges had been extra careful all of the time. They had been extra careful when they lived with Count Eggman, and Sonic had still ended up dangling from a cage outside Eggman's tower room. They had been extra careful when they'd worked at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Amy had still ended up hypnotized by Dr. Rouge Orwell. And now the Hedges had been as careful as they could possibly be, but the hospital had turned out to be as hostile an environment as anywhere the three children had ever lived. But just as Amy and Sonic entered the finished Half of Heimlich Hospital , their feet moving less and less emphatically and their hearts beating faster and faster, they heard something that soothed their savage breasts:

 _"We are Volunteers Fighting Disease, And we're cheerful all day long._

 _If someone said that we were sad, That person would be wrong."_

There, coming around the corner, were the Volunteers Fighting Disease, walking down the Hall singing their cheerful song and carrying enormous bunches of heart-shaped balloons. Amy and Sonic looked at one another, and ran to catch up with the group. What better place to hide than among people who believed that no news was good news, and so didn't read the newspaper?

 _"We visit people who are sick, And try to make them smile, Even if their noses bleed,_

 _Or if they cough up bile."_

To the children's relief, the volunteers paid no attention as Amy and Sonic infiltrated the group, a phrase which here means "sneaked into the middle of a singing crowd." An especially cheerful singer seemed to be the only one who noticed, and she immediately

handed a balloon to each newcomer. Amy and Sonic held the balloons in front of their faces, so that anybody passing by would see two volunteers with shiny, helium-filled hearts, instead of two accused criminals hiding in V.F.D.

 _"Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon."_

As the volunteers reached the chorus of the song, they marched into a hospital room in order to start giving a cheerful attitude to the patients. Inside the room, each lying uncomfortably in a metal bed, were a stoat with both legs in casts and a vixen with both arms in bandages. Still singing, a man from V.F.D. handed one balloon to the man and tied another to the woman's cast, because she could not hold it with her broken arms.

"Excuse me," said the man hoarsely, "could you please call a nurse for me? I was supposed to take some painkillers this morning, but nobody has come to give them to me."

"And I'd like a glass of water," the woman said in a weak voice, "if it's not too much trouble."

"Sorry," the bearded goat replied, pausing for a moment to tune his guitar. "We don't have time to do things like that. We have to visit each and every room of the hospital, so we need to move quickly."

"Besides," another volunteer said, giving the two patients a huge grin, "a cheerful attitude is a more effective way of fighting illness than painkillers, or a glass of water. So cheer up, and enjoy your balloon." The volunteer consulted a list he was holding. "Next on the patient list is a cat named Bernard Rieux, in room 105 of the Plague Ward. Come on, brothers and sisters."

The members of V.F.D. cheered, and continued the song as they left the room. Amy and Sonic peered around the balloons they were holding and looked at one another in hope.

"If we visit each and every room in the hospital," Amy whispered to her brother, "we're sure to find Tails."

"Mushulm," Sonic said, which meant "I agree, although it won't be pleasant to see all these sick people."

"We visit people who are ill, And try to make them laugh, Even when the doctor says He must saw them in half."

Bernard Rieux turned out to be a cat with a nasty, hacking cough that shook his body so much he could scarcely hold his balloon, and it seemed to the two Hedge children that a good humidifier would have been a more effective way to fight this disease than a cheerful attitude. As the members of V.F.D. drowned out his cough with another verse of the song,

Amy and Sonic were tempted to run and find a humidifier and bring it back to Bernard Rieux's room, but they knew that Tails was in much more danger than someone with a cough, so they stayed hidden in the group.

 _"We sing and sing all night and day, And then we sing some more._

 _We sing to boys with broken bones And girls whose throats are sore."_

The next patient on the list was Cynthia Vane, a young rabbit with a terrible toothache who probably would have preferred something cold and easy to eat, instead of a heartshaped balloon, but as sore as her mouth looked, the children dared not run and find her applesauce or an ice-cream snack. They knew she might have read The Daily Punctilio, in order to pass the hours in the hospital room, and might recognize them if they showed their faces.

 _"Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon."_

On and on the volunteers marched, and Amy and Sonic marched with them, but with every ho ho ho and hee hee hee their hearts sank lower and lower. The two Hedges followed the members of V.F.D. up and down the staircases of the hospital, and although they saw a great number of confusing maps, intercom speakers, and sick people, they did not catch a glimpse of their brother. They visited Room 201 and sang to Jonah Mapple, who was suffering from seasickness, and they gave a heart-shaped balloon to Charley Anderson in Room 714, who had injured himself in an car accident, and they visited Clarissa Dalloway, who did not seem to have anything wrong with her but was staring sadly out the window of Room 1308, but nowhere, in any of the rooms that the volunteers marched into, was Tails Hedge, who, Amy and Sonic feared, was suffering more than any of the other patients.

"Ceyune," Sonic said, as the volunteers walked up yet another staircase. She meant something along the lines of "We've been wandering around the hospital all morning, and we're no closer to rescuing our sister," and Amy nodded grimly in agreement.

"I know," Amy said, "but the members of V.F.D. are going to visit every single person in Heimlich Hospital . We're sure to find Tails eventually."

"Attention! Attention!" a voice announced, and the volunteers stopped singing and gathered around the nearest intercom speaker to hear what Mattathias had to say. "Attention!" Mattathias said. "Today is a very important day in the history of the hospital. In precisely one hour, a doctor here will perform the world's first cranioectomy on a fourteen-year-old boy. We all hope that this very dangerous operation is a complete success. That is all."

"Tails," Sonic murmured to his sister.

"I think so, too," Amy said. "And I don't like the sound of that operation. 'Cranio' means 'head and 'ectomy' is a medical term for removing something."

"Decap?" Sonic asked in a horrified whisper. He meant something like "Do you think they're going to cut off Tails' head?"

"I don't know," Amy said with a shudder, "but we can't wander around with these singing volunteers any longer. We've got to find her right away."

"O.K.," a volunteer called, consulting the list. "The next patient is Emma Bovary in Room 2611. She has food poisoning, so she needs a particularly cheerful attitude."

"Excuse me, brother," Amy said to the volunteer, reluctantly using the term "brother" instead of "person I hardly know." "I was wondering if I could borrow your copy of the patient list."

"Of course," the volunteer replied. "I don't like to read all these names of sick people, anyway. It's too depressing. I'd rather hold balloons." With a cheerful smile, the volunteer handed Amy the long list of patients, and took the heart-shaped balloon out of his hands as the bearded goat began the next verse of the song.

 _"We sing to men with measles, And to women with the flu,_

 _And if you breathe in deadly germs, We'll probably sing to you."_

With her face exposed, Amy had to duck down behind Sonic's balloon to look at the list of the hospital's patients. "There are hundreds of people on this list," she said to her brother, "and it's organized by ward, not by name. We can't read it all here in the Hallway, particularly when we both have to hide behind one balloon."

"Damajat," Sonic said, pointing down the Hall. By "Damajat," she meant something along the lines of "Let's hide in that supply closet over there," and sure enough, there was a door marked "Supply Closet" at the end of the Hallway, past two doctors who had paused to chat beside one of the confusing maps. While the members of V.F.D. started in on the chorus of their song as they walked toward Emma Bovary's room, Amy and Sonic separated themselves from the volunteers and walked carefully toward the closet, holding the balloon in front of both their faces as best they could. Luckily, the two doctors were too busy talking about a sporting event they had watched on television to notice two accused murderers sneaking down the Hallway of their hospital, and by the time the volunteers were singing

 _"Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon._

 _Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, Have a heart-shaped balloon."_

Amy and Sonic were inside the closet.

Like a church bell, a coffin, and a vat of melted chocolate, a supply closet is rarely a comfortable place to hide, and this supply closet was no exception. When they shut the door of the closet behind them, the two younger Hedges found themselves in a small, cramped room lit only by one flickering lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. On one wall was a row of white medical coats hanging from hooks, and on the opposite wall was a rusty sink where one could wash one's hands before examining a patient. The rest of the closet was full of huge cans of alphabet soup for patients' lunches, and small boxes of rubber bands, which the children could not imagine came in very handy in a hospital.

"Well," Amy said, "it's not comfortable, but at least nobody will find us in here."

"Pesh," Sonic said, which meant something like "At least, until somebody needs rubber bands, alphabet soup, white medical coats, or clean hands."

"Well, let's keep one eye on the door, to see if anyone comes in," Amy said, "but let's keep the other eye on this list. It's very long, but now that we have a few moments to look it over, we should be able to spot Tails' name."

"Right," Sonic said. Amy placed the list on top of a can of soup, and hurriedly began to flip through its pages. As he had noticed, the list of patients was not organized alphabetically, but by ward, a word which here means "particular section of the hospital," so the two children had to look through every single page, hoping to spot the name Tails Hedge among the typed names of sick people. But as they glanced at the list under the heading "Sore Throat Ward," perused the names on the "Broken Neck Ward" page, and combed through the names of all the people who were staying in the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes, Amy and Sonic felt as if they were in a Ward for People with Sinking Stomachs, because Tails' name was nowhere to be found. As the lightbulb flickered above them, the two Hedges looked frantically at page after page of the list, but they found nothing that would help them locate their brother.

"She's not here," Amy said, putting down the last page of "Pneumonia Ward." "Tails' name is nowhere on the list. How are we going to find her in this huge hospital, if we can't figure out what ward he's in?"

"Alias," Sonic said, which meant "Maybe he's listed under a different name."

"That's true," Amy said, looking at the list again. "After all, Mattathias's real name is Count Eggman. Maybe he made up a new name for Tails, so we couldn't rescue her. But which person is really Tails? He could be anyone from Mikhail Bulgakov to Haruki Murakami. What are we going to do? Somewhere in this hospital, they're getting ready to perform a completely unnecessary operation on our sister, and we-"

Amy was interrupted by the sound of crackly laughter, coming from over the Hedges' heads. The two children looked up and saw that a square intercom speaker had been installed

on the ceiling. "Attention!" said Mattathias, when he was done laughing. "Dr. Flacutono, please report to the Surgical Ward. Dr. Flacutono, please report to the Surgical Ward to prepare for the cranioectomy."

"Flacutono!" Sonic repeated.

"I recognize that name, too," Amy said. "That's the false name used by Count Eggman's associate when we lived in Paltryville."

"Tiofreck!" Sonic said frantically. She meant "Tails' in grave danger-we have to find him immediately," but Amy did not answer. Behind her glasses, her eyes were Half closed, as they often were when she was trying to remember something he had read. Then she reached into her pocket, where he was keeping all the important papers the Hedges had gathered. "Emang Con Gutm," he said, and took out one of the pages of the Quagmire notebooks. It was the page that had written on it the words "Ana Gram"-a phrase that had not made any sense to the Hedges when they had looked at the pages together. Amy looked at the Quagmire page, and then at the list of patients, and then at the page again. Then he looked at Sonic, and she could see his eyes grow wide behind his glasses, the way they always did when he had read something very difficult, and understood it at last.

"I think I know how to find Tails," Amy said slowly, "but we'll need your teeth, Sonic." "Ready," Sonic said, opening her mouth.

Amy smiled, and pointed to the stack of cans in the supply closet. "Open one of those cans of alphabet soup," he said, "and hurry."

Chapter nine

"Recazier?" Sonic asked dumbfoundedly. The word "dumbfoundedly" here means "wondering why in the world Amy wanted to eat alphabet soup at a time like this," and "Recazier?" here means "Amy, why in the world do you want to eat alphabet soup at a time like this?"

"We're not going to eat it," Amy said, handing Sonic one of the cans. "We're going to pour just about all of it down the sink."

"Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity," Sonic said, which you will probably recall means something along the lines of "I must admit I don't have the faintest idea of what is going on." Sonic had now said this particular thing three times over the course of her life, and he was beginning to wonder if this was something he was only going to say more and more as he grew older.

"The last time you said that," Amy said with a smile, "the three of us were trying to figure out the pages the Quagmires left behind." He held out a page for Sonic to see, and then pointed to the words "Ana Gram." "We thought this was someone's name," Amy said, "but it's really a kind of code. An anagram is when you move the letters around in one or more words to make another word or words."

"Still pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity," Sonic said with a sigh.

"I'll give you an example," Amy said. "It's the example the Quagmires found. Look, on the same page they wrote 'Emang Con Gutm.' That's the name of the man who wrote The Marvelous Marriage, that dreadful play Count Eggman forced us to participate in."

"Yuck," Sonic said, which meant "Don't remind me."

"But look," Amy said. "'Emang Con Gutm' has all the same letters as 'Count Eggman.' Eggman just rearranged the letters in his name to hide the fact that he really wrote the play himself. You see?"

"Phromein," Sonic said, which meant something like "I think I understand, but it's difficult for someone as young as myself."

"It's difficult for me, too," Amy said. "That's why the alphabet soup will come in handy. Count Eggman uses anagrams when he wants to hide something, and right now he's hiding our brother. I bet he's somewhere on this list, but his name's been scrambled up. The soup is going to help unscramble him."

"But how?" Sonic asked.

"It's difficult to figure out anagrams if you can't move the letters around," Amy said. "Normally, alphabet blocks or lettered tiles would be perfect, but alphabet noodles will do in a pinch. Now, hurry and open a can of soup." Sonic grinned, showing all of his sharp sharp teeth, and then swung his head down onto the can of soup, remembering the day he had learned to open cans all by himself. It was not that long ago, although it felt like it was in the very distant past, because it was before the Hedge mansion burned down, when the entire family was happy and together. It was the Hedges' mother's birthday, and she was sleeping late while everyone baked a cake for her. Tails was beating the eggs, butter, and sugar with a mixing device she had invented herself. Amy was sifting the flour with the cinnamon, pausing every few minutes to wipe his glasses. And the Hedges' father was making his famous cream-cheese frosting, which would be spread thickly on top of the cake. All was going well until the electric can opener broke, and Tails didn't have the proper tools to fix it. The Hedges' father desperately needed to open a can of condensed milk to make his frosting, and for a moment it looked like the cake was going to be ruined. But Sonic-who had been playing quietly on the floor this whole time- said his first word, "Bite," and bit down on the can, poking four small holes so the sweet, thick milk could pour out. The

Hedges laughed and applauded, and the children's mother came downstairs, and from then on they used Sonic whenever they needed to open a can of anything, except for beets. Now, as the youngest Hedge bit along the edge of the can of alphabet soup, he wondered if one of his parents had really survived the fire, and if she dared get her hopes up just because of one sentence on page thirteen of the Snicket file. Sonic wondered if the Hedge family would ever be together again, laughing and clapping and working together to make something sweet and delicious.

"All done," Sonic said finally.

"Good work, Sonic," Amy said. "Now, let's try to find alphabet noodles that spell Tails' full name."

"M?" Sonic asked.

"That's right," Amy said. "M - I – L – E- S - T- A- I – L -S - H -E-D-G-E."

The two younger Hedges reached into the can of soup and sorted through the diced carrots, chopped celery, blanched potatoes, roasted peppers, and steamed peas, which were all in a rich and creamy broth made from a secret blend of herbs and spices, to find the noodles they needed. The soup was cold from sitting in the closet for months and months, and occasionally they would find the right letter only to have it fall into pieces, or slip from their clammy fingers back into the can, but before too long they had found a T, an I, an L, an E, an S, a T, an A, an I, a L, a S, a H, another E, a D, a G, and a bit of carrot they decided to use when a third E was not to be found.

"Now," Amy said, after they laid all of the noodles on top of another can so they could move them around. "Let's take another look at the list of patients. Mattathias announced that the operation would take place in the Surgical Ward, so let's look in that section of the list, and try to see if any names look like good bets."

Sonic poured the rest of soup into the sink and nodded in agreement, and Amy hurriedly found the Surgical Ward section of the list and read the names of the patients:

LISA N. LOOTNDAY

ALBERT M. DEVILOEIA

LINDA RKAHNDEEN

ADA O. ÜUBERVILLET

ED VALIANTBRUE

MILLES HAIS TEDGE

MONTY KENSICLE

NED H. RIRGER

ERIQ BLUMTHETTS

RUTH DËRCROUMP

ALM BRISNOW

CARRIE E. ABELABUDITE

"Goodness!" Amy said. "Every single patient on the list has a name that looks like an anagram. How in the world can we sort through all these names before it's too late?"

"M!" Sonic said.

"You're right," Amy said. "Any name that doesn't have a M in it can't be an anagram of 'Miles Tails Hedge.' We could cross those off the list-if we had a pen, that is."

Sonic reached thoughtfully into one of the white medical coats, wondering what doctors might keep in their pockets. he found a surgical mask, which is perfect for covering one's face, and a pair of rubber gloves, that are perfect for protecting one's hands, and at the very bottom of the pocket he found a fountain pen, which is perfect for crossing out names which aren't the anagrams you're looking for. With a grin, Sonic handed the pen to Amy, who quickly crossed out the names without Ms. Now the list looked like this:

ALBERT M. DEVILOEIA

MONTY KENSICLE

ERIQ BLUMTHETTS

RUTH DËRCROUMP

ALM BRISNOW

MILLES HAIS TEDGE

CARRIE M. ABELABOUDITE

"That makes it much easier," Amy said. "Now, let's move around the letters in Tails's name and see if we can spell out 'Albert M. Deviloeia.'"

Working carefully to avoid breaking them, Amy began to move the noodles he and Sonic had taken out of the soup, and soon learned that 'Albert M. Deviloeia' and "Miles Tails Hedge" were not quite anagrams. They were close, but they did not have the exact same letters in their names.

"Albert M. Deviloeia must be an actual sick person," Amy said in disappointment. "Let's try to spell out ' MONTY KENSICLE.'"

Once again, the supply closet was filled with the sound of shifting noodles, a faint and damp sound that made the children think of something slimy emerging from a swamp. It was, however, a far nicer sound than the one that interrupted their anagram decoding.

"Attention! Attention!" Mattathias's voice sounded particularly snide as it called for attention from the square speaker over the Hedges' heads. "The Surgical Ward will now be closed for the cranioectomy. Only Dr. Flacutono and his associates will be allowed into the ward until the patient is dead-I mean, until the operation is over. That is all."

"Velocity!" Sonic shrieked.

"I know we have to hurry!" Amy cried. "I'm moving these noodles as quickly as I can! ERIQ BLUMTHETTS isn't right, either!" She turned to the list of patients again to see who was next, and accidentally hit a noodle with her elbow, knocking it to the floor with a moist splat. Sonic picked it up for her, but the fall had split it into two pieces. Instead of an A, the Hedges now had a half an A.

"That's ok," Amy said half panicking. "The next name on the list is RUTH DËRCROUMP, which has no A"

"O!" Sonic shrieked.

"O!" Amy agreed.

"O!" Sonic insisted.

"Oh!" Amy cried. "I see what you mean! If it has an O in it, it can't be an anagram of Miles Tails Hedge. That only leaves one name on the list: MILLES HAIS TEDGE. That must be the one we're looking for."

"Check!" Sonic said, and held his breath as Amy moved the noodles around. In a few seconds, the name of the eldest Hedge brother had been transformed into MILLES HAIS TEDGE, except for the O, which Sonic still held in pieces in his tiny fist, and the last E, which was still a piece of carrot.

"It's him, all right," Amy said, with a grin of triumph. "We've found Tails."

"Asklu," Sonic said, which meant "We never would have found him if you hadn't figured out that Eggman was using anagrams."

"It was really the Quagmire triplets who figured it out," Amy said, holding up the notebook page, "and it was you who opened the cans of soup, which made it much easier. But

before we congratulate ourselves, let's rescue our sister." Amy took a look at the list of patients. "We'll find 'MILLES HAIS TEDGE' in Room 922 of the Surgical Ward."

"Gwito," Sonic pointed out, which meant "But Mattathias closed the Surgical Ward." "Then we'll have to open it," Amy said grimly, and took a good look around the supply

closet. "Let's put on those white medical coats," he said. "Maybe if we look like doctors, we can get into the ward. We can use these surgical masks in the pocket to hide our faces-just like Eggman's associate did at the lumbermill."

"Quagmire," Sonic said doubtfully, which meant "When the Quagmires used disguises, they didn't fool Eggman."

"But when Eggman used disguises," Amy said, "he fooled everyone."

"Us," Sonic said.

"Except us," Amy agreed, "but we don't have to fool ourselves."

"True," Sonic said, and reached for two white coats. Because most doctors are adults, the white coats were far too big for the children, who were reminded of the enormous pinstripe suits Eudora Squalor had purchased for them when she had been their guardian. Amy helped Sonic roll up the sleeves of his coat, and Sonic helped Amy tie her mask around her face, and in a few moments the children were finished putting on their disguises.

"Let's go," Amy said, and put her hand on the door of the supply closet. But she did not open it. Instead he turned back to his brother, and the two Hedges looked at each other. Even though the siblings were wearing white coats, and had surgical masks on their faces, they did not look like doctors. They looked like two children in white coats with surgical masks on their faces. Their disguises looked spurious-a word which here means "nothing at all like a real doctor"-and yet they were no more spurious than the disguises that Eggman had been using since his first attempt to steal the Hedge fortune. Amy and Sonic looked at one another and hoped that Eggman's methods would work for them, and help them steal their brother, and without another word, they opened the door and stepped out of the supply closet.

"Douth?" Sonic asked, which meant "But how are we going to find the Surgical Ward, when the maps of this hospital are so confusing?"

"We'll have to find someone who is going there," Amy said. "Look for somebody who looks like they're on their way to the Surgical Ward."

"Silata," Sonic said. He meant something along the lines of "But there are so many people here," and he was right. Although the Volunteers Fighting Disease were nowhere to be seen, the hallways of Heimlich Hospital were full of people. A hospital needs many different people and many different types of equipment in order to work properly, and as Amy and Sonic tried to find the Surgical Ward they saw all sorts of hospital employees and devices hurrying through the Halls. There were physicians carrying stethoscopes, hurrying to listen to people's heartbeats, and there were obstetricians carrying babies, hurrying to deliver people's children. There were radiologists carrying X-ray machines, hurrying to view people's insides, and there were optic surgeons carrying laser-driven technology hurrying to get inside

people's views. There were nurses carrying hypodermic needles, hurrying to give people shots, and there were administrators carrying clipboards, hurrying to catch up on important paperwork. But no matter where the Hedges looked, they couldn't see anyone who seemed to be hurrying to the Surgical Ward.

"I don't see any surgeons," Amy said in desperation. "Peipix," Sonic said, which meant "Me neither."

"Out of my way, everybody!" demanded a voice at the end of the Hallway. "I'm a surgical assistant, carrying equipment for Dr. Flacutono!"

The other employees of the hospital stopped and cleared the way for the person who had spoken, a tall person dressed in a white lab coat and a surgical mask who was coming down the Hallway in odd, tottering steps.

"I've got to get to the Surgical Ward right away!" the person called, walking past the Hedges without even glancing at them. But Amy and Sonic glanced at this person. They saw, beneath the bottom hem of the white coat, the pair of shoes with stiletto heels that this person was wearing, and they saw the handbag in the shape of an eye that the person was holding in one hand. The children saw the black veil of the person's halt, which was hanging in front of the surgical mask, and they saw blotches of lipstick, which had soaked through from the person's lips and were staining the bottom of the mask. The person, of course, was pretending to be a surgical assistant, and she was carrying something that was pretending to be a piece of surgical equipment, but the children did not need more than a glance to see through both of these spurious disguises. As they watched the person tottering down the Hallway, the two Hedges knew at once that she was really Eudora Squalor, the villainous girlfriend of Count Eggman. And as they looked at the thing she was carrying, glinting in the light of the hospital Hallway, the two Hedges knew that it was nothing more than a large rusty knife, with a long row of jagged teeth, just perfect for a cranioectomy.

Chapter 10

At this point in this dreadful story I am writing. I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good frind of mine called Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidopterist, a word which here means 'someone who studies butterflies'

In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were-four officers in their bright pink

uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right-and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured-he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life-but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens. I am telling you this story not just to reveal the courage and imagination of one of my dearest friends, but to help you imagine how Amy and Sonic felt as they watched Eudora Squalor, disguised as an associate of Dr. Flacutono, walk down the Hallway of Heimlich Hospital carrying the long, rusty knife disguised as a surgical tool to be used on Tails. The two youngsters realized that their only chance of finding the Surgical Ward and rescuing their sister was to try and fool this greedy and stiletto heeled villain, but as they approached her, like Mr. Sirin during his fifth and final prison sentence, the two Hedges felt the unpleasant fluttering of butterflies in their stomachs.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Amy said, trying to sound less like a thirteen-year-old girl and more like someone who had graduated from medical school. "Did you say you were an associate of Dr. Flacutono?"

"If you're someone with a hearing problem," Eudora said rudely, "don't bother me. Go to the Ear Ward."

"I'm not someone with a hearing problem," Amy said. "This woman and I are associates of Dr. Flacutono."

Eudora stopped in the middle of stabbing the floor, and stared down at the two siblings. Amy and Sonic could see her eyes shining behind the veil of her fashionable hat as she regarded the children before replying.

"I was just wondering where you were," she said. "Come along with me, and I'll take you to the patient."

"Patsy," Sonic said.

"What she is saying," Amy said quickly, "is that we're very concerned about Milles Hais Tedge."

"Well, you won't be concerned for long," Eudora replied, leading the children around a corner to another Hallway. "Here, you carry the knife."

The evil girlfriend handed Amy the rusty blade, and leaned in closely to talk with her. "I'm glad you two are here," she whispered. "The brat's little sister and brother haven't been

captured yet, and we still don't have the file on the Snicket fires. The authorities removed it for their investigation. The boss says we might have to torch the place."

"Torch?" Sonic asked.

"Mattathias will take care of that part," Eudora said, looking around the Hallway to make sure no one could hear them. "All you have to do is assist with the surgery. Let's hurry up."

Eudora walked up a stairway as fast as her shoes could carry her, and the children followed nervously behind her, Amy holding the rusty, jagged knife. With every door they opened, every Hallway they walked down, and every staircase they ascended, the youngsters were afraid that at any moment Eudora would see through their disguises and realize who they were. But the greedy woman was too busy pausing to yank the blades of the stiletto heels out of the floor to notice that the two additional associates of Dr. Flacutono bore a very strong resemblance to the children she was trying to capture. Finally, Eudora led the Hedges to a door marked "Surgical Ward," which was being guarded by someone the children recognized at once. The guard was wearing a coat which read "Heimlich Hospital " and a cap that had the word "GUARD" printed on it in big black print, but Amy and Sonic could see that this was another spurious disguise. The siblings had seen this person at Damocles Dock, when poor Aunt Sticks had been their guardian, and they'd had to cook for this person when they'd been living with Count Eggman. The spurious guard was an enormous person who looked like neither a man nor a woman, and who had been assisting Count Eggman with his nefarious schemes for as long as the Hedges had been escaping from them. The person looked at the children, and the children look back at him or her, certain that they would be recognized. But Eggman's assistant merely nodded and opened the door.

"They've already anesthetized the bratty orphan," Eudora said, "so you ladies merely need to go to her room and bring her to the operating theater. I'm going to try to find that sniveling bookworm and that stupid baby with the oversized teeth. Mattathias says I get to choose which one to keep alive in order to force Mr. Silver Poe to give us the fortune, and which one I get to rip to shreds."

"Good," Amy said, trying to sound fierce and villainous. "I'm so tired of chasing those kids around."

"Me, too," Eudora said, and the enormous assistant nodded in agreement. "But I'm sure this will be the last time. Once we've destroyed the file, nobody can accuse us of any crimes, and once we murder the orphans, the fortune will be ours."

The villainous woman paused and looked around her to make sure no one was listening, and then, satisfied that no one could hear her, she laughed wildly in triumph. The enormous assistant laughed, too, an odd laugh that sounded like a squeal and a howl at the same time, and the two Hedge youngsters tilted back their masked faces and made noises as if they were laughing, too, although their laughter was as spurious as their disguises. Amy and Sonic felt more like being sick than laughing as they pretended to be as greedy and evil as Count Eggman and his troupe. It had never occurred to the children how these terrible people acted when they didn't have to pretend to be nice, and the two siblings were horrified to hear all the bloodthirsty things Eudora had said. Watching Eudora and the enormous assistant laugh together made the butterflies in the Hedge stomachs flutter all the more, and the

youngsters were relieved when Eudora finally stopped laughing, and ushered the children into the Surgical Ward.

"I'll leave you ladies in the hands of our associates," she said, and the Hedges immediately saw with horror what she meant. Eudora shut the door behind them, and the children found themselves facing two more of Count Eggman's wicked associates.

"Well, hello there," the first one said in a sinister voice, pointing at the two children with an odd-looking hand. One of the fingers was curved at an odd angle while the others hung limp, like socks hung out to dry, and Amy and Sonic could see at once that this was the associate of Eggman who had hooks instead of hands, wearing rubber gloves to hide his unusual and dangerous appendages. Behind him was a man whose hands were not as familiar, but Amy and Sonic recognized him just as easily, due to the hideous wig he was wearing on his head. The wig was so limp, white, and curly that it looked like a heap of dead worms, which is not the sort of wig one forgets. The children had certainly not forgotten it from when they had been living in Paltryville, and realized at once that this person was the bald man with the long nose who had been assisting Count Eggman since the Hedges' troubles began. The hook-handed man and the bald man with the long nose were among the nastiest members of Eggman's troupe, but unlike the majority of nasty people of this earth, they were also quite clever, and the two young siblings felt the butterfly feeling in their stomachs increase exponentially-a phrase which here means "get much, much worse"-as they waited to see if these two associates were clever enough to see through the children's disguises.

"I can see through your disguise," the hook-handed man continued, and placed one of his spurious hands on Amy's shoulder.

"Me, too," the bald man said, "but I don't think anyone else will. I don't know how you ladies managed to do it, but you look much shorter in those white coats."

"And your faces don't look as pale in those surgical masks," the hook-handed man agreed. "These are the best disguises Eggman-I mean Mattathias-has ever cooked up."

"We don't have time for all this talking," Amy said, hoping that the associates wouldn't recognize his voice, either. "We've got to get to Room 922 right away."

"You're right, of course," the hook-handed man said. "Follow us."

The two associates began walking down the Hallway of the Surgical Ward as Amy and Sonic looked at one another in relief.

"Gwit," Sonic murmured, which meant "They didn't recognize us either."

"I know," Amy replied in a whisper. "They think we're the two powder-faced women, disguised as associates of Dr. Flacutono, instead of two children disguised as the two powder- faced women disguised as associates of Dr. Flacutono."

"Stop all that whispering about disguises," the bald man said. "If anyone hears you, it'll be the end of us."

"Instead of the end of Milles Hais Tedge," the hook-handed fox said with a sneer. "I've been waiting to get hooks on him since he escaped did well, you know."

"Trapped," Sonic said, sneering as best he could.

"Trapped is right," the bald man said. "I already gave him the anesthetic, so he's unconscious. All we have to do is lead him to the operating theater, and you can saw his head off."

"I still don't understand why we have to murder her in front of all those doctors," the hook-handed man said.

"So it can look like an accident, you idiot," the bald man snarled in reply.

"I'm not an idiot," the hook-handed man said, stopping to glare at his fellow associate. "I'm physically handicapped."

"Just because you're physically handicapped doesn't mean you're mentally clever," the bald man said.

"And just because you're wearing an ugly wig," the hook-handed man said, "doesn't mean you can insult me."

"Stop all this arguing!" Amy said. "The sooner we can operate on Milles Hais Tedge, the sooner we'll all be rich."

"Yes!" Sonic said.

The two criminals looked down at the Hedges, and then nodded at one another sheepishly. "The ladies are right," the hook-handed man said. "We shouldn't behave unprofessionally, just because it's been a very stressful time at work."

"I know," the bald man said with a sigh. "It seems like we've been following these three orphans forever, only to have them slip out of our grasp at the last minute. Let's just focus on getting the job done, and work out our personal problems later. Well, here we are."

The four disguised people had reached the end of a Hallway and were standing in front of a door marked "Room 922," with the name "MILLES HAIS TEDGE" scrawled on a piece of paper and taped beneath. The bald man took a key out of the pocket in his medical coat, and unlocked the door with a triumphant grin. "Here he is," he said. "Our little Mr. sleeping beauty."

The door opened with a long, whiny creak, and the children stepped inside the room, which was square and small and had heavy shades over the windows, making it quite dark inside. But even in the dim light the children could see their brother, and they almost gasped at how dreadful she looked.

When the bald associate had mentioned a sleeping beauty, he was referring to a fairy tale that you have probably heard one thousand times. Like all fairy tales, the story of Sleeping Beauty begins with "Once upon a time," and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss

and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase "happily ever after." The story is usually illustrated with fancy drawings of the napping princess, who always looks very glamorous and elegant, with his hair neatly combed and a long silk gown keeping him comfortable as she snores away for years and years. But when Amy and Sonic saw Tails in Room 922, it looked nothing like a fairy tale.

The eldest Hedge was lying on a gurney, which is a metal bed with wheels, used in hospitals to move patients around. This particular gurney was as rusty as the knife Amy was holding, and its sheets were ripped and soiled. Eggman's associates had put him into a white gown as filthy as the sheets, and had twisted his legs and together like vines. His bangs had been messily thrown over his eyes so that no one would recognize his face from The Daily Punctilio it also made him look like a girl , and his arms hung loosely from his body, one of them almost touching the floor of the room with one limp finger. His face was pale, as pale and empty as the surface of the moon, and his mouth was open slightly in a vacant frown, as if he were dreaming of being pricked with a pin. Tails looked like he had dropped onto the gurney from a great height, and if it were not for the slow and steady rise of his chest as he breathed, it would have looked like he had not survived the fall. Amy and Sonic looked at him in horrified silence, trying not to cry as they gazed at their helpless brother.

"He's a bit of a pretty one," the hook-handed man said, "even when he's unconscious. He looks like a girl to be honest."

"he's clever, too," the bald man said, "although his clever little brain won't do him any good when his head has been sawed off."

"Let's hurry up and go to the operating theater," the hook-handed man said, beginning to move the gurney out of the room. "Mattathias said the anesthetic would last for only a little while, so we'd best start the cranioectomy."

"I wouldn't mind if he woke up in the middle of it," the bald man said with a giggle, "but I suppose that would ruin the plan. You ladies take the head end. I don't like to look at him when he's frowning like that."

"And don't forget the knife," the hook-handed man said. "Dr. Flacutono and I will be supervising, but you two will actually perform the operation."

The two children nodded, afraid that if they tried to speak, the two henchmen would hear how anxious they were and become suspicious. In silence they took their places at the gurney where their sister lay without moving. The Hedges wanted to gently shake him by the shoulders, or whisper in his ear, or even just brush the hair away from her eyes-anything at all to help their unconscious sibling. But the two youngsters knew that any affectionate gesture would give away their disguise, so they just walked alongside the gurney, clutching the rusty knife, as the two men led the way out of Room 922 and through the Halls of the Surgical Ward. With every step, Amy and Sonic watched their brother carefully, hoping for a sign that the anesthesia was wearing off, but Tails' face remained as still and blank as the sheet of paper on which I am printing this story.

Although his siblings preferred to think about his inventing abilities and conversational skills rather than his physical appearance, it was true, as the hook-handed man had said, that Tails was a pretty one, and if his bangs had been neatly combed, instead of all tangled up, and he had been dressed in something elegant and glamorous, instead of a stained gown, she

might indeed have looked like an illustration from "Sleeping Beauty." If Sleeping Beauty was a man of course. But the two younger Hedges did not feel like characters in a fairy tale. The unfortunate events in their lives had not begun with "Once upon a time," but with the terrible fire that had destroyed their home, and as Eggman's associates led them to a square metal door at the end of the Hallway, Amy and Sonic feared that their lives would not end like a fairy tale either. The label on the door read "Operating Theater," and as the hook-handed man opened it with one curved glove, the two children could not imagine that their story would end with "happily ever after."

 _R_

Eleven

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians perform a symphony, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors perform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once, because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering, and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants.

I'm sorry to say, however, that the operating theater at Heimlich Hospital was still quite popular at the time this story takes place. As Amy and Sonic followed Eggman's two disguised associates through the square metal door, they saw that the large, dark room was filled with people.

There were rows of doctors in white coats who were clearly eager to see a new operation being performed. There were clusters of nurses sitting together and whispering with excitement about the world's first cranioectomy. There was a large group of Volunteers Fighting Disease who seemed ready to burst into song if needed. And there were a great many people who looked like they had simply walked over to the operating theater to see what was playing. The four disguised people wheeled the gurney onto a small bare stage, lit by a chandelier that was hanging from the ceiling, and as soon as the light of the chandelier fell on Amy and Sonic's unconscious brother, all of the audience members burst into cheers and applause. The roar from the crowd only made Amy and Sonic even more anxious, but Eggman's two associates stopped moving the gurney, raised their arms, and bowed several times.

"Thank you very much!" the hook-handed man cried. "Doctors, nurses, Volunteers Fighting Disease, reporters from The Daily Punctilio, distinguished guests, and regular people, welcome to the operating theater at Heimlich Hospital . I am Dr. O. Lucafont, and I will be your medical host for today's performance."

"Hooray for Dr. Lucafont!" a doctor cried, as the crowd burst into applause again, and the hook-handed man raised his rubber-gloved hands and took another bow.

"And I am Dr. Flacutono," the bald man announced, looking a bit jealous of all the applause the hook-handed man was getting. "I am the surgeon who invented the cranioectomy, and I am thrilled to operate today in front of all you wonderful and attractive people."

"Hooray for Dr. Flacutono!" a nurse shouted, and the crowd applauded again. Some of the reporters even whistled as the bald man bowed deeply, using one hand to hold his curly wig on his head.

"The surgeon is right!" the hook-handed man said. "You are wonderful and attractive, all of you! Go on, give yourselves a big hand!"

"Hooray for us!" a volunteer cried, and the audience applauded another time. The two Hedges looked at their older sister, hoping that the noise of the crowd would wake her up, but Tails did not move.

"Now, the two lovely ladies you see are two associates of mine named Dr. Tocuna and Nurse Flo," the bald man continued. "Why don't you give them the same wonderful welcome you gave us?"

Amy and Sonic half expected someone in the crowd to shout, "They aren't medical associates! They're those two children wanted for murder!" but instead the crowd merely cheered once more, and the two children found themselves waving miserably at the members of the audience. Although the youngsters were relieved that they hadn't been recognized, the butterflies in their stomachs only got worse as everyone in the operating theater grew more and more eager for the operation to begin.

"And now that you've met all of our fantastic performers," the hook-handed man said, "let the show begin. Dr. Flacutono, are you ready to begin?"

"I sure am," the bald man said. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, as I'm sure you know, a cranioectomy is a procedure in which the patient's head is removed. Scientists have discovered that many health problems are rooted in the brain, so that the best thing to do with a sick patient is remove it. However, a cranioectomy is as dangerous as it is necessary. There is a chance that Milles Hais Tedge might die while the operation is being performed, but sometimes one must risk accidents in order to cure illness."

"A patient's death would certainly be a terrible accident, Dr. Flacutono," the hookhanded man said.

"It sure would, Dr. O. Lucafont," the bald man agreed. "That's why I'm going to have my associates perform the surgery, while I supervise. Dr. Tocuna and Nurse Flo, you may begin."

The crowd applauded once more, and Eggman's associates bowed and blew kisses to each corner of the operating theater as the two children looked at one another in horror.

"What can we do?" Amy murmured to her brother, looking out at the crowd. "We're surrounded by people who expect us to saw Tails' head off."

Sonic looked at Tails, still unconscious on the gurney, and then at her brother, who was holding the long, rusty knife Eudora had given her. "Stall," he said. The word "stall" has two meanings, but as with most words with two meanings, you can figure out which meaning is being used by looking at the situation. The word "stall," for example, can refer to a place where horses are kept, but Amy knew at once that Sonic meant something more along the lines of "We'll try to postpone the operation as long as we can, Amy," and she nodded silently in agreement. The middle Hedge took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to think of something that could help him postpone the cranioectomy, and all at once he thought of something he had read.

When you read as many books as Amy Hedge, you are going to learn a great deal of information that might not become useful for a long time. You might read a book that would teach you all about the exploration of outer space, even if you do not become an astronaut until you are eighty years old. You might read a book about how to perform tricks on ice skates, and then not be forced to perform these tricks for a few weeks. You might read a book on how to have a successful marriage, when the only woman you will ever love has married someone else and then perished one terrible afternoon. But although Amy had read books on outer-space exploration, ice-skating tricks, and good marriage methods, and not yet found much use for this information, he had learned a great deal of information that was about to become very useful indeed.

"Before I make the first incision," Amy said, using a fancy word for "cut" in order to sound more like a medical professional, "I think Nurse Flo and I should talk a little bit about the equipment we're using."

Sonic looked at her brother quizzically. "Knife?" she asked. "That's right," Amy said. "It's a knife, and-"

"We all know it's a knife, Dr. Tocuna," the hook-handed man said, smiling at the audience, as the bald man leaned in to whisper to Amy.

"What are you doing?" he hissed. "Just saw off the brat's head and we'll be done."

"A real doctor would never perform a new operation without explaining everything," Amy whispered back. "We have to keep talking, or we'll never fool them."

Eggman's associates looked at Amy and Sonic for a moment, and the two Hedges got ready to run, dragging Tails' gurney with them, if they were recognized at last. But after a moment's hesitation, the two disguised men looked at each other and nodded.

"I suppose you're right," the hook-handed man said, and then turned to the audience. "Sorry for the delay, folks. As you know, we're real doctors, so that's why we're explaining everything. Carry on, Dr. Tocuna."

"The cranioectomy will be performed with a knife," Amy said, "which is the oldest surgical tool in the world." He was remembering the section on knives in A Complete History of Surgical Tools, which he had read when he was eleven. "Early knives have been found in Egyptian tombs and Mayan temples, where they were used for ceremonial purposes, and mostly fashioned out of stone. Gradually bronze and iron became the essential materials in knives, although some cultures fashioned them out of the incisors of slain animals."

"Teeth," Sonic explained.

"There are a number of different types of knives," Amy continued, "including the pocket- knife, the penknife, and the drawing knife, but the one required for this cranioectomy is a Bowie knife, named after Colonel James Bowie, who lived in Texas ."

"Wasn't that a magnificient explanation, ladies and gentlemen?" the hook-handed man said.

"It sure was," one of the reporters agreed. She was a woman wearing a gray suit and chewing gum as she spoke into a small microphone. "I can see the headline now: 'DOCTOR AND NURSE EXPLAIN HISTORY OF KNIFE.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!"

The audience applauded in agreement, and as the operating theater filled with the sound of cheers and clapping, Tails moved on her gurney, ever so slightly. Her mouth opened a little wider, and one of her limp hands stirred briefly. The motions were so small that only Amy and Sonic noticed them, and they looked at one another hopefully. Could they keep stalling until the anesthesia completely wore off?

"Enough talk," the bald man whispered to the children. "It's lots of fun fooling innocent people, but we'd better get on with the operation before the orphan wakes up."

"Before I make the first incision," Amy said again, continuing to address the audience as if the bald man hadn't spoken, "I would like to say a few words concerning rust." He paused for a moment and tried to remember what he had learned from a book entitled What Happens to Wet Metal, which he had received as a gift from his mother. "Rust is a reddish-brown coating that forms on certain metals when they oxidize, which is a scientific term for a chemical reaction occurring when iron or steel comes into contact with moisture." He held up the rusty knife for the audience to see, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tails's hand move again, just barely. "The oxidation process is integral to a cranioectomy due to the oxidative processes of cellular mitochondria and cosmetic demystification," he continued, trying to use as many complicated words as he could think of.

"Clap!" Sonic cried, and the audience applauded once more, although not as loudly this time.

"Very impressive," the bald associate said, glaring at Amy over his surgical mask. "But I think these lovely people will understand the process better once the head has actually been removed."

"Of course," Amy replied. "But first, we need to tenderize the vertebrae, so we can make a clean cut. Nurse Flo, will you please nibble on Tai-I mean, on MILLES HAIS TEDGE's neck?"

"Yes," Sonic said with a smile, knowing just what Amy was up to. Standing on tiptoe, the youngest Hedge gave her sister a few small nibbles on the neck, hoping that it would wake Tails up. As Sonic's teeth scraped against her skin, Tails twitched, and shut his mouth, but nothing more.

"What are you doing?" the hook-handed man demanded in a furious whisper. "Perform the operation at once, or Mattathias will be furious!"

"Isn't Nurse Flo wonderful?" Amy asked the audience, but only a few members of the crowd clapped, and there was not a single cheer. The people in the operating theater were clearly eager to see some surgery rather than hear any more explanations.

"I believe you've bitten her neck enough," the bald man said. His voice was friendly and professional, but his eyes were gazing at the children suspiciously. "Let's get on with the cranioectomy."

Amy nodded, and clasped the knife in both hands, holding it up over his helpless sister. He looked at Tails's sleeping figure and wondered if he could made a very small cut on Tails's neck, one that could wake her up but wouldn't injure her. He looked at the rusty blade, which was shaking up and down as his hands trembled in fear. And then he looked at Sonic, who had stopped nibbling on Tails's neck and was looking up at him with wide, wide eyes.

"I can't do it," he whispered, and looked up at the ceiling. High above them was a square intercom speaker that he had not noticed before, and the sight of the speaker made him think of something. "I can't do it," he announced, and there was a gasp from the crowd.

The hook-handed man took a step toward the gurney, and pointed his limp, curved glove at Amy. The middle Hedge could see the sharp tip of his hook, poking through the finger of the glove like a sea creature emerging from the water. "Why not?" the hook-handed man asked quietly.

Amy swallowed, hoping he still sounded like a medical professional instead of a scared child. "Before I make the first incision, there's one more thing that has to be done-the most important thing we do here at Heimlich Hospital ."

"And what is that?" the bald man asked. His surgical mask curled down as he gave the children a sinister frown, but Sonic's mask began to curl in the opposite direction as she realized what Amy was talking about, and began to smile.

"Paperwork!" she said, and to the Hedges' delight, the audience began to applaud once more.

"Hooray!" called a member of V.F.D. from the back of the operating theater, as the cheering continued. "Hooray for paperwork!"

Eggman's two associates looked at one another in frustration as the Hedges looked at one another in relief. "Hooray for paperwork indeed!" Amy cried. "We can't operate on a patient until her file is absolutely complete!"

"I can't believe we forgot about it, even for a moment!" a nurse cried. "Paperwork is the most important thing we do at this hospital!"

"I can see the headline now," said the reporter who had spoken earlier. "'HEIMLICH HOSPITAL ALMOST FORGETS PAPERWORK!' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!"

"Somebody call Kahn," suggested a doctor. "He's in charge of the Library of Records, so he can solve this paperwork problem."

"I'll call Kahn right now!" announced a nurse, walking out of the operating theater, and the crowd clapped in support of her decision.

"There's no need to call Kahn," said the hook-handed man, holding up his hooked gloves to try to calm the crowd. "The paperwork has been taken care of, I promise you."

"But all surgical paperwork has to be verified by Kahn," Amy said. "That's the policy of Heimlich Hospital ."

The bald man glared down at the children and spoke to them in a frightening whisper. "What in the world are you doing?" he asked them. "You're going to ruin everything!" "I think Dr. Tocuna is right," another doctor said. "That's the policy here."

The crowd applauded again, and Amy and Sonic looked at one another. The two Hedges, of course, had no idea what the hospital's policy was concerning surgical paperwork, but they were beginning to see that the crowd would believe just about anything if they thought it was being said by a medical professional.

"Kahn is on his way," the nurse announced, reentering the room. "There's apparently been some problem at the Library of Records, but he'll come as quickly as he can and settle this matter once and for all."

"We don't need Kahn to settle this matter once and for all," a voice said from the far end of the theater, and the Hedges turned to see the slender, tottering figure of Eudora Squalor, walking straight toward them in her stiletto-heeled shoes, with two people trailing dutifully behind her. These two people were both dressed in medical coats and surgical masks just like the Hedges'. Amy and Sonic could see just a bit of their pale faces above the masks and knew at once that they were the two powder-faced assistants of Eggman.

"This is the real Dr. Tocuna," Eudora said, pointing to one of the women, "and this is the real Nurse Flo. The two people up on this stage are impostors."

"No we're not," the hook-handed man said angrily.

"Not you two," Eudora said impatiently, glaring over her surgical mask at the two henchmen. "I mean the other two people on the stage. They fooled everyone. They fooled doctors, nurses, volunteers, reporters, and even me- until I found the real associates of Dr. Flacutono, that is."

"In my medical opinion," Amy said, "I believe this woman has lost her mind."

"I haven't lost my mind," Eudora said with a snarl, "but you're about to lose your heads, Hedges."

"Hedges?" the reporter from The Daily Punctilio asked. "The same Hedges who murdered Count Redman?"

"Eggman," the bald man corrected.

"I'm confused," whined a volunteer. "There are too many people pretending to be other people."

"Allow me to explain," Eudora said, stepping up on the stage. "I am a medical professional, just like Dr. Flacutono, Dr. O. Lucafont, Dr. Tocuna, and Nurse Flo. You can see that from our medical coats and surgical masks."

"Us, too!" Sonic cried.

Eudora's surgical mask curled up in a wicked smile. "Not for long," she said, and in one swift gesture she ripped the masks off the Hedges' faces. The crowd gasped as the masks fluttered to the ground, and the two children saw the doctors, nurses, reporters, and regular people in the crowd look at them in horror. Only the Volunteers Fighting Disease, who believed that no news was good news, did not recognize the youngsters.

"They are the Hedges!" a nurse exclaimed in astonishment. "I read about them in The Daily Punctilio!"

"Me, too!" cried a doctor.

"It's always a pleasure to hear from our readers," the reporter said modestly.

"But there were supposed to be three murderous orphans, not two!" another doctor said. "Where's the oldest one?"

The hook-handed man hurriedly stepped in front of the gurney, shielding Tails from view. "She's already in jail," he said quickly.

"She is not!" Amy said, and brushed Tails's hair out of her eyes so that everyone could see she was not MILLES HAIS TEDGE. "These terrible people disguised her as a patient, so they could cut her head off!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Eudora said. "You're the one who was trying to cut her head off.

Look, you're still holding the knife."

"That's true!" the reporter cried. "I can see the headline now: 'murderer attempts to murder murderer.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!"

"Tweem!" Sonic shrieked.

"We're nor murderers!" Amy translated frantically.

"If you're not murderers," the reporter said, holding out her microphone, "then why have you sneaked into a hospital in disguise?"

"I think I can explain that," said another familiar voice, and everyone turned to see Kahn enter the operating theater. In one hand he was clutching the ring of keys the Hedges had made from paper clips and Tails's hair ribbon, and with the other hand he was pointing angrily at the children.

"Those three Hedge murderers," he said, "pretended to be volunteers in order to come to work in the Library of Records."

"They did?" a nurse said, as the audience gasped. "You mean they're murderers and phony volunteers?"

"No wonder they didn't know the words to the song!" a volunteer cried.

"Taking advantage of my poor eyesight," Kahn continued, pointing at his glasses, "they made these fake keys and switched it with the real one, so they could sneak into the library and destroy the files about their crimes!"

"We didn't want to destroy the file," Amy said, "we wanted to clear our names. I'm sorry we tricked you, Kahn, and I'm sorry that some of the file cabinets were knocked over, but-"

"Knocked over?" Kahn repeated. "You did more than knock over cabinets." He looked at the children and sighed wearily, and then turned to face the audience. "These children committed arson," he said. "The Library of Records is burning as we speak."

 _R_

Twelve

I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoo on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with this very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play, presented just for someone else's amusement, and that the playwright who invented my cruel twist of fate is somewhere far above me, laughing and laughing at his creation. It is not pleasant to feel this way, and it is doubly unpleasant if the cruel twist of fate happens to you when you are actually standing on a stage and there is actually someone, far above you, laughing and laughing, as it was with the Hedge children in the operating theater of Heimlich Hospital. The children had scarcely heard Kahn's accusation that they had burned down the Library of Records when they heard rough and familiar laughter coming out of the intercom speaker above them. The siblings had heard this laughter when Mattathias had first captured the Quagmire triplets, and when he had trapped the Hedges in a locked Deluxe Cell. It was the triumphant laughter of someone who has cooked up a fiendish plot and succeeded, although it always sounded like the laughter of someone who has just told an excellent joke. Because he was laughing over the scratchy intercom, Mattathias sounded as if he had a piece of aluminum foil over his mouth, but the laughter was still loud enough to help wear off the anesthesia, and Tails murmured something and moved her arms.

"Oops," Mattathias said, interrupting his laughter as he realized the intercom was on. "This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources, with an important announcement. There is a terrible fire in Heimlich Hospital . The fire was set in the Library of Records by the Hedge murderers, and has spread to the Sore Throat Ward, the Stubbed Toe Ward, and the Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn't Have Ward. The orphans are still at large, so do everything you can to find them. After the murdering arsonists have been captured, you might want to rescue some of the patients who are trapped in the fire. That is all."

"I can see the headline now," the reporter said. '"Hedge murderers torch paperwork.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!"

"Somebody tell Mattathias we've captured the children," a nurse cried in triumph. "You three brats are in big trouble. You're murderers, arsonists, and spurious doctors."

"That's not true," Amy said, but as she looked around she feared that no one would believe her. She looked at the spurious key ring in Kahn's hands, that she and her siblings had used to sneak into the Library of Records. She looked at his medical coat, which he had used to disguise herself as a doctor. And she looked at the rusty blade in her own hands, which she had just been holding over her brother. Amy remembered when she and her brothers were living with Uncle Knuckles, and brought several objects to Mr. Silver Poe as evidence of Eggman's treacherous plot. Because of these small objects, Eggman was placed under arrest, and now Amy was afraid that the same thing would happen to the Hedges.

"Surround them!" the hook-handed man called, pointing at the children with one curved glove. "But be careful. The bookworm still has the knife!" Eggman's associates spread out in a circle and slowly began walking toward the youngsters at all angles. Sonic whimpered in fright, and Amy picked her up and put her on the gurney.

"Arrest the Hedges!" a doctor cried.

"That's what we're doing, you fool!" Eudora replied impatiently, but when she turned her head to the Hedges they saw her wink above her surgical mask.

"We're going to capture only one of you," she said, in a quiet voice so the audience wouldn't hear her. With two long fingernailed hands she reached down to her stiletto heels. "This in footwear isn't just useful for making me look glamorous and feminine," she said, removing the shoes and pointing them at the children. "These stilettos are perfect for slitting children's throats. Two bratty little Hedges will be killed while trying to escape from justice, leaving one bratty little Hedge to give us the fortune."

"You'll never get your hands on our fortune," Amy said, "or your shoes on our throats." "We'll see," Eudora said, and swung her left shoe at Amy as if it were a sword. Amy

ducked quickly and felt the whoosh!of air as the blade swept over him.

"She's trying to kill us!" Amy shouted to the audience. "Can't you see? These are the real murderers!"

"No one will ever believe you," Eudora said in a sinister whisper, and swung her right shoe at Sonic, who moved away just in time.

"I don't believe you!" shouted Kahn. "My eyesight might not be what it used to be, but I can see your phony medical coat."

"I don't believe you, either!" a nurse cried. "I can see that rusty knife!"

Eudora swung both shoes at the same time, but they collided in midair instead of hitting the children. "Why don't you surrender?" she hissed. "We've finally trapped you, just as you trapped Eggman all those other times."

"Now you know what it feels like to be a villain," the bald man chuckled. "Move closer, everyone! Mattathias told me that whoever grabs them first gets to choose where to go for dinner tonight!"

"Is that so?" the hook-handed man asked. "Well, I'm in the mood for pizza." He swung a rubber-gloved hook at Amy, who fell back against the gurney, rolling it out of the evil man's reach.

"I feel more like Chinese food," one of the powder-faced women said. "Let's go to that place where we celebrated the Quagmire kidnapping."

"I want to go to Cafe Salmonella," Eudora snarled, disentangling her shoes.

Amy pushed against the gurney again, wheeling it in the other direction as the circle of associates closed in. He held the rusty knife up for protection, but the middle Hedge did not think he could use a weapon, even on people as wicked as these. If Count Eggman had been trapped, he would not have hesitated to swing the rusty blade at the people who were surrounding him, but despite what the bald man had said, Amy did not feel like a villain. She felt like someone who needed to escape, and as he pushed against the gurney again, he knew how he was going to do it.

"Get back!" Amy cried. "This knife is very sharp!"

"You can't kill all of us," the hook-handed man replied. "In fact, I doubt you have the courage to kill anyone."

"It doesn't take courage to kill someone," Amy said. "It takes a severe lack of moral stamina."

At the mention of the phrase "severe lack of moral stamina," which here means "cruel selfishness combined with a love of violence," Eggman's associates laughed in delight.

"Your fancy words won't save you now, you twerp," Eudora said.

"That's true," Amy admitted. "What will save me now is a bed on wheels used to transport hospital patients."

Without another word, Amy tossed the rusty knife to the floor, startling Eggman's associates into stepping back. The circle of people with a severe lack of moral stamina was spread out a little more, just for a moment, but a moment was all the Hedges needed. Amy jumped onto the gurney, which began to roll quickly toward the square metal door they had come in. A cry rose from the audience as the Hedges sped past Eggman's associates.

"Get them!" the hook-handed man cried. "They're getting away!"

"They won't get away from me!" Kahn promised, and grabbed the gurney just before it reached the door. The gurney slowed to a Kahnt, and for a second Sonic found herself face-to- face with the old man. Butterflies fluttered in the youngest Hedge's stomach as he glared at her from behind his tiny glasses. Unlike Eggman's associates, Kahn was not an evil person, of course. He was merely someone who loved the Library of Records and was trying to capture the people he believed had set it on fire, and it pained Sonic to see that he thought she was an evil criminal, instead of an unlucky infant. But she knew she did not have time to explain to Kahn what had really happened. She scarcely had time to say a single word, and yet that is precisely what the youngest Hedge did.

"Sorry," Sonic said to Kahn, and gave him a small smile. Then she opened her mouth a little wider, and bit Kahn's hand as gently as she could, so that he would let go of the gurney without getting hurt.

"Ow!" Kahn said, and let go. "The baby bit me!" he shouted to the crowd. "Are you hurt?" a nurse asked.

"No," Kahn replied, "but I let go of the gurney. They're rolling out the door!"

The Hedges rolled out the door, with Tails' eyes flickering open, Amy steering the gurney, and Sonic hanging on for dear life. The children rolled down the Hallways of the Surgical Ward, dodging around surprised doctors and other medical professionals.

"Attention!" announced Mattathias's voice over the intercom. "This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources! The Hedge murderers and arsonists are escaping on a gurney! Capture them at once! Also, the fire is spreading throughout the hospital! You might want to evacuate!"

"Noriz!" Sonic shouted.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Amy cried, dangling his legs over the side of the gurney to scoot it along. "Tails, wake up, please! You can help push!"

"I'm try ... ing . . . ." Tails muttered, squinting around him. The anesthesia made everything seem faint and foggy, and it was almost impossible for him to speak, let alone move.

"Door!" Sonic shrieked, pointing to the door that led out of the Surgical Ward. Amy steered the gurney in that direction and rode past Eggman's fat associate who looked like neither a man nor a woman, who was still dressed as a spurious guard. With a terrible roar, it began to give chase, walking in huge, lumbering steps, as the Hedges raced toward a small group of Volunteers Fighting Disease. The bearded volunteer, who was playing some very familiar chords on his guitar, looked up to see the gurney wheel past them.

"Those must be those murderers Mattathias was talking about!" he said. "Come on, everyone, let's help that guard capture them!"

"Sounds good to me," another volunteer agreed. "I'm a bit tired of singing that song, if you want to know the truth."

Amy steered the gurney around a corner, as the volunteers joined the overweight associate in pursuit. "Wake up," he begged Tails, who was looking around her in a confused way. "Please, Tails!"

"Stairs!" Sonic said, pointing to a staircase. Amy turned the gurney in the direction her brother indicated, and the children began to roll down the stairs, bouncing up and down with each step. It was a fast, slippery ride that reminded the children of sliding down the bannisters at 667 Dark Avenue , or colliding with Mr. Silver Poe's automobile when they were living with

Uncle Knuckles. At a curve in the staircase, Amy scraped her shoes against the floor to stop the gurney, and then leaned over to look at one of the hospital's confusing maps.

"I'm trying to figure out if we should go through that door," he said, pointing at a door marked "Ward for People with Nasty Rashes," "or continue down the staircase."

"Dleen!" Sonic cried, which meant "We can't continue down the staircase-look!"

Amy looked, and even Tails managed to focus enough to look down where Sonic was pointing. Down the staircase, just past the next landing, was a flickering, orange glow, as if the sun was rising out of the hospital basement, and a few wisps of dark black smoke were curling up the staircase like the tentacles of some ghostly animal. It was an eerie sight that had haunted the Hedges in their dreams, ever since that fateful day at the beach when all their trouble began. For a moment, the three children were unable to do anything but stare down at the orange glow and the tentacles of smoke, and think about all they had lost because of what they were looking at.

"Fire," Tails said faintly.

"Yes," Amy said. "It's spreading up this staircase. We've got to turn and go back upstairs."

From upstairs, the Hedges listened to the associate roar again, and heard the bearded volunteer reply.

"We'll help you capture them," he said. "Lead the way, sir-or is it madam? I can't tell." "No up," Sonic said.

"I know," Amy said. "We can't go up the stairs and we can't go down. We have to go into the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes."

Having made this rash decision, Amy turned the gurney and wheeled it through the door, just as Mattathias's voice came through on the intercom. "This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources," he said hurriedly. "All associates of Dr. Flacutono , continue to search for the children! Everyone else, gather in front of the hospital-either we will catch the murderers as they escape, or they'll be burned to a crisp!"

The children rolled into the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes and saw that Mattathias was right. The gurney was racing down a Hallway, and the children could see another orange glow at the far end of it. The children heard another roar behind them as the overweight associate lumbered down the stairs. The siblings were trapped in the middle of a Hallway that led only to a fiery death or to Eggman's clutches.

Amy leaned down and stopped the gurney. "We'd better hide," she said, jumping to the floor. "It's too dangerous to be rolling around like this."

"Where?" Sonic asked, as Amy helped her down.

"Someplace close by," Amy said, grabbing Tails' arm. "The anesthesia is still wearing off, so Tails can't walk too far."

"I'll . . . try. . . ." Tails murmured, stepping unsteadily off the gurney and leaning on Amy. The children looked around and saw that the nearest door was marked "Supply Closet."

"Glaynop?" Sonic asked.

"I guess so," Amy said doubtfully, opening the door with one hand while balancing Tails with the other. "I don't know what we can do in a supply closet, but at least it'll hide us for a few moments."

Amy and Sonic helped their sister through the door and locked it behind them. Except for a small window in the corner, the closet looked identical to the one where Amy and Sonic had hidden to decipher the anagram in the patient list. It was a small room, with only one flickering lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and there were a row of white medical coats hanging from hooks, a rusty sink, huge cans of alphabet soup, and small boxes of rubber bands, but as the two younger Hedges looked at these supplies, they did not look like devices for translating anagrams and impersonating medical professionals. Amy and Sonic looked at all these objects, and then at their older brother. To their relief, Tails' face was a bit less pale, and her eyes were a bit less confused, which was a very good sign. The eldest Hedge needed to be as awake as she could be, because the items in the closet were looking less and less like supplies, and more and more like materials for an invention.

Chapter thirteen

When Tails was five he won his first invention contest with and automatic rolling pin he made with a broken window shade, and a pair of roller skates. As the judge had placed the gold medal around his neack he said "I bet that you invent something with both hands tied behind your back."

Tails had smiled at this comment proudly. He of cource knew that the judge did not mean that he was going to tie her up, but mearly that he was so skilled at inventing that he could probably invent something even with substantial interference, a phrase which here means "something getting in his way."

The eldest Hedge had proved the judge right dozens of times, of course, inventing everything from a lockpick to a welding torch with the substantial interference of being in a hurry and not having the right tools. But Tails thought he had never had as much substantial interference as the lingering effects of anesthesia as he squinted at the objects in the supply closet and tried to focus on what his siblings were saying.

"Tails," Amy said, "I know that the anesthesia hasn't completely worn off, but we need you to try to invent something."

"Yes," Tails said faintly, rubbing her eyes with her hands. "I ... know."

"We'll help you all we can," Amy said. "Just tell us what to do. The fire is consuming this entire hospital, and we have to get out of here quickly."

"Rallam," Sonic added, which meant "And Eggman's associates are chasing us."

"Open ... the window," Tails said with difficulty, pointing to the window in the corner.

Amy helped Tails lean against the wall, so he could step over to the window without letting her fall. He opened the window and looked outside. "It looks like we're on the third floor," he said, "or maybe the fourth. There's smoke in the air, so it's hard to tell. We're not so high up, but it's still too far to jump."

"Climb?" Sonic asked.

"There's an intercom speaker right below us," Amy said. "I suppose we could hang on to that and climb down to the bushes below, but we'd be climbing in front of a huge crowd. The doctors and nurses are helping the patients escape, and there's Kahn, and that reporter from The Daily Punctilio and-"

The middle Hedge was interrupted by a faint sound coming from outside the hospital.

 _"We are Volunteers Fighting Disease, And we're cheerful all day long._

 _If someone said that we were sad, That person would be wrong."_

"And the Volunteers Fighting Disease," Amy continued. "They're waiting at the entrance to the hospital, just like Mattathias told them to. Can you invent something to fly over them?"

Tails frowned and closed her eyes, standing still for a moment as the volunteers continued singing.

 _"We visit people who are sick, And try to make them smile,_

 _Even if their noses bleed, Or if they cough up bile."_

"Tails?" Amy asked. "You're not falling asleep again, are you?"

"No," Tails said. "I'm . . . thinking. We need ... to distract . . . the crowd . . . before we ... climb down."

The children heard a faint roar from beyond the closet door. "Kesalf," Sonic said, which meant "That's Eggman's associate. It sounds like it's entering the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes. We'd better hurry."

"Amy," Tails said, and opened her eyes. "Open those boxes . . . of rubber bands. Start to string . . . them together... to make ... a cord."

 _"Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon._

 _Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon_."

Amy looked down and watched the volunteers giving balloons out to the hospital patients who had been evacuated from the hospital. "But how will we distract the crowd?" he asked.

"I ... don't know," Tails admitted, and looked down at the floor. "I'm having . . . trouble focusing my . . . inventing skills."

"Help," Sonic said.

"Don't cry for help, Sonic," Amy said. "No one will hear us."

"Help," Sonic insisted, and took off his white medical coat. Opening his mouth wide, he bit down on the fabric, ripping a small strip off the coat with his teeth. Then he held up the strip of white cloth, and handed it to Tails.

"Ribbon," he said, and Tails gave her a weary smile. With unsteady fingers, the eldest Hedge tied his bangs up to keep it out of his eyes, using the thin strip of fabric instead of a hair ribbon. he closed her eyes again, and then nodded.

"I know . . . it's a bit silly," Tails said. "I think ... it did help, Sonic. Amy . . . get to work ... on the rubber bands. Sonic-can you open . . . one of those cans of soup?"

"Treen," Sonic said, which meant "Yes- I opened one earlier, to help decode the anagrams."

"Good," Tails replied. With her hair up in a ribbon-even if the ribbon was spurious-her voice sounded stronger and more confident. "We need ... an empty can ... as quickly as ... possible."

 _"We visit people who are ill, And try to make them laugh, Even when the doctor says He must saw them in Half._

 _We sing and sing all night and day, And then we sing some more_.

 _We sing to boys with broken bones And girls whose throats are sore."_

As the members of V.F.D. continued their cheerful song, the Hedges worked quickly. Amy opened a box of rubber bands and began stringing them together, Sonic began to gnaw at the top of a can of soup, and Tails went to the sink and splashed water on her face to try to make herself as alert as possible. Finally, by the time the volunteers were singing

" _Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon._

 _Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,_

 _Have a heart-shaped balloon."_

Amy had a long cord of rubber bands curled at her feet like a snake, Sonic had taken the top off a can of soup and was pouring it down the sink, and Tails was staring anxiously at the bottom of the closet door, from which a very thin wisp of smoke was crawling out.

"The fire is in the Hallway," Tails said, as the children heard another roar from the Hallway, "and so is Eggman's henchperson. We have only a few moments."

"The cord is all ready," Amy said, "but how can we distract the crowd with an empty soup can?"

"It's not an empty soup can," Tails said, "not anymore. Now it's a spurious intercom.

Sonic, poke one hole in the bottom of the can."

"Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity," Sonic said, but he did as Tails asked and poked his sharpest tooth through the bottom of the can.

"Now," Tails said, "you two hold this near the window. Don't let the crowd see it. They have to think my voice is coming out of the intercom."

Amy and Sonic held the empty soup can near the window, and Tails leaned in and stuck her head inside it, as if it were a mask. The eldest Hedge took a deep breath to gather her courage, and then he began to speak in his best imitation of a woman, and from inside the can his voice sounded scratchy and faint, as if he were talking with a piece of aluminum foil over his mouth, which was precisely how he wanted to sound.

"Attention!" Tails announced, before the volunteers could sing the verse about singing to men with measles. "This is Babs. Mattathias has resigned due to personal problems, so I am once again the Head of Human Resources. The Hedge murderers and arsonists have been spotted in the unfinished wing of the hospital. We require everyone's assistance in making sure they do not escape. Please rush over there right away. That is all."

Tails pulled his head out of the can, and looked at her siblings. "Do you think it worked?" she asked.

Sonic opened her mouth to answer, but she was interrupted by the voice of the bearded volunteer.

"Did you hear that?" the children heard him say. "The criminals are over in the unfinished Half of the hospital. Come on, everyone."

"Maybe some of us should stay here at the front entrance, just in case," said a voice the Hedges recognized as Kahn's.

Tails stuck her head back into the can. "Attention!" she announced. "This is Babs, the Head of Human Resources. No one should stay at the front entrance to the hospital. It's too dangerous. Proceed at once to the unfinished wing. That is all."

"I can see the headline now," said the reporter from The Daily Punctilio. "'MURDERERS CAPTURED IN UNFINISHED HALF OF HOSPITAL BY WELL-ORGANIZED

MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!"

There was a cheer from the crowd, which faded as they walked away from the front of Heimlich Hospital .

"It worked," Tails said.

"We fooled them. We're as good at tricking people as Eggman is."

"And at disguises," Amy said.

"Anagrams," Sonic said.

"And lying to people," Tails said, thinking of Kahn, and the shopkeeper at Last Chance General Store and all the Volunteers Fighting Disease. "Maybe we're becoming villains after all."

"Don't say that," Amy said. "We're not villains. We're good people. We had to do tricky things in order to save our lives."

"Eggman has to do tricky things," Tails said, "to save his life." "Different," Sonic said.

"Maybe it's not different," Tails said sadly. "Maybe-"

Tails was interrupted by an angry roar coming from just outside the closet door. Eggman's overweight assistant had reached the supply closet and was now fumbling at the door with its enormous hands.

"We can discuss this later," Amy said. "We have to get out of here right now."

"We're not going to climb," Tails said, "not with such a skinny, rubbery cord. We're going to bounce."

"Bounce?" Sonic asked doubtfully.

"Plenty of people bounce from high places on long, rubbery cords just for fun," Tails said, "so I'm sure we can do it to escape. I'll tie the cord to the faucet with the Devil's Tongue knot, and we'll each take turns jumping out the window. The cord should catch us before we hit the ground, and bounce us up, and down, and up, and down, more and more gently each time. Eventually we'll get to the bottom safely, and then we'll toss it back up to the next person."

"It sounds risky," Amy said. "I'm not sure the cord is long enough." "It is risky," Tails agreed, "but not as risky as a fire."

The associate rattled the door furiously, making a large crack right near the lock. Black smoke began to pour through the crack as if the assistant were pouring ink into the closet, as Tails hurriedly tied the cord to the faucet and then tugged on it to make sure it was secure.

"I'll go first," he said. "I invented it, so I'd better test it." "No," Amy said. "We're not taking turns."

"Together," Sonic agreed.

"If we all go down together," Tails said, "I'm not sure the cord will hold."

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Amy said firmly. "Not this time. Either we all escape, or none of us do."

"But if none of us do," Tails said tearfully, "then there won't be any Hedges left. Eggman will have won."

Amy reached into his pocket and brought out a sheet of paper. He unfolded it, and his sisters could see that it was page thirteen of the Snicket file. He pointed to the photograph of the Hedge parents and the sentence that was printed below it.

"'Because of the evidence discussed on page nine,'" he read out loud, "'experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown.' We've got to survive, too-so we can find out what happened, and bring Eggman to justice."

"But if we take turns," Tails said frantically, "there's a better chance that one of us will survive."

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Amy said firmly. "That's what makes us different from Eggman."

Tails thought for a moment, and nodded. "You're right," she said.

Eggman's associate kicked at the door, and the crack grew bigger. The children could see a tiny orange light shining in the Hallway and realized that the fire and the associate must have reached the door at the same time.

"I'm scared," Tails said. "I'm frightened," Amy said.

"Sheer terror," Sonic said, and the associate kicked the door again, forcing a few sparks through the crack in the door reaving the person who neither looks like a man not a woman. The Hedges looked at one another, and each child grabbed the rubber band cord with one hand. With their other hands they clasped one another, and then, without another word, they leaped out of the window of Heimlich Hospital .

STOP

There are many things in this world I do not know. I do not know how butterflies get out of their cocoons without damaging their wings. I do not know why anyone would boil vegetables when roasting them is tastier. I do not know how to make olive oil, and I do not know why dogs bark before an earthquake, and I do not know why some people voluntarily choose to climb mountains where it is freezing and difficult to breathe, or live in the suburbs, where the coffee is watery and all of the houses look alike. I do not know where the Hedge children are now, or if they are safe or if they are even alive. But there are some things I do know, and one of them is that the window of the supply closet in the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes of Heimlich Hospital was not on the third floor or the fourth floor, as Amy had guessed. The window was on the second floor, so that when the three children dropped through the smoky air, clinging to the rubber band cord for dear life, Tails's invention worked perfectly. Like a yo-yo, the children bounced gently up and down, brushing their feet against one of the bushes planted in front of the hospital, and after a few bounces it was safe to drop to the ground and hug each other with relief.

"We made it," Tails said. "It was a close call, but we survived."

The Hedges looked behind them at the hospital, and saw just how close a call it had been. The building looked like a fiery ghost, with great bursts of flame coming from the windows, and oceans of smoke pouring from great gaping holes in the walls. The children could hear glass shattering as the windows burned away, and the crackle of wood as the floors fell through. It occurred to the children that their own house must have looked like this on the day it burned down, and they stepped back from the burning building and huddled together as the air grew thick with ashes and smoke, obscuring the hospital from view.

"Where can we go?" Amy asked, shouting over the roar of the fire. "Any minute now, the crowd will figure out that we're not in the unfinished Half of the hospital, and return here."

"Run!" Sonic shrieked.

"But we can't even see where we're going!" Tails cried. "The whole area is filling up with smoke!"

"Stay down!" Amy said, dropping to the ground and beginning to crawl. "In The Encyclopedia of Escaping Arson, the author wrote that there's more oxygen closer to the ground, so we can breathe more easily. But we need to get to some kind of shelter right away."

"Where will we find some kind of shelter, in this empty landscape?" Tails asked, crawling behind his sister. "The hospital is the only building for miles, and it's burning to the ground!"

"I don't know," Amy said, coughing loudly, "but we can't breathe in this smoke for long!"

"Hurry up!" the Hedges heard a voice call out of the smoke. "This way!" A long, black shape emerged from the smoky air, and the children saw it was an automobile, pulling up in front of the hospital. An automobile, of course, is a kind of shelter, but the siblings froze on the ground and dared not crawl an inch farther toward the car.

"Hurry up!" Eggman's voice said again. "Hurry up or I'll leave you behind!"

"I'm coming, darling." From behind them, the Hedges heard the reply of Eudora Squalor. "Lucafont and Flacutono are with me, and the ladies are following behind. I had them take all the medical coats we could find, in case we need them for costumes again."

"Good thinking," Eggman replied. "Can you see the car in the smoke?"

"Yes," Eudora said, her voice growing closer. The Hedges could hear the odd footsteps of her stiletto-heeled shoes as she strode toward the automobile. "Open the trunk, darling, and we'll put the costumes in."

"Oh, all right," Eggman sighed, and the children saw the tall figure of their enemy step out of the car.

"Wait up, Eggman!" the bald man cried.

"You fool," Eggman replied. "I told you to call me Mattathias until we leave the hospital grounds. Hurry up and get in the car. The Snicket file wasn't in the Library of Records, but I think I know where I can find it. Once we destroy those thirteen pages, there'll be no stopping us."

"We've got to destroy the Hedges, too," Eudora said.

"We would have destroyed them, if all of you hadn't messed up my plan," he said, "but never mind that. We have to get out of here before the authorities come."

"But your largest assistant is still in the Rash Ward, looking for the brats!" the bald man said, and the children heard him open the door of the automobile.

The hook-handed man spoke up, and the children could see his odd shape in the smoke as he got into the car after the bald assistant. "The Ward for People with Nasty Rashes is entirely destroyed," he said. "I hope the big one got out O.K."

"We're not going to wait around to find out if that fool lived or died," Eggman snarled. "As soon as the ladies can put the costumes in the trunk, we'll get out of here. It's been splendid setting this fire, but we've got to find the Snicket file as soon as possible, before You-Know- Who does."

"V.F.D.!" Eudora said with a cackle. "The real V.F.D., that is, not those ridiculous singers!"

The trunk opened with a creak, and the children saw the shadow of the trunk's lid flip open into the smoky air. The lid was peppered with tiny holes-bullet holes, it looked like, undoubtedly from being pursued by the police. Eggman strode back to the car and continued giving orders.

"Get out of the front seat, you idiots," Eggman said. "My girlfriend sits in front, and the rest of you can pile in the back."

"Yes, boss," the bald man replied.

"We have the costumes, Mattathias." The voice of one of the powder-faced women was faint in the smoke. "Just give us a few seconds to reach the car."

Tails leaned as close as he could to his siblings so he could whisper to them without being heard. "We've got to go in there," he said.

"Where?" Amy whispered in reply.

"In the trunk," Tails replied. "It's our only chance to get out of here without getting captured-or worse."

"Culech!" Sonic said in a horrified whisper, which meant something along the lines of "Getting in the trunk is the same thing as getting captured!"

"We've got to get the rest of the Snicket file before Eggman does," Tails said, "or we'll never be able to clear our names."

"Or bring Eggman to justice," Amy said.

"Ezan," Sonic said, which meant "Or find out if one of our parents really survived the fire."

"The only way we can do all those things," Tails said, "is to get in the trunk of that car."

Eggman's voice floated through the smoke, as deceitful and dangerous as the fire itself. "Get in the car this instant!" he ordered his associates. "I'm going to leave at the count of three."

The Hedges gripped each other's hands so firmly that it hurt to hang on. "Think of everything we have survived together," Tails whispered. "We've lived through countless unfortunate events, only to find ourselves alone. If one of our parents has survived, it'll all be worthwhile. We have to find them if it's the last thing we do."

"One!"

Amy looked at the gaping trunk, which looked like the mouth of some dark and smoky beast, eager to devour her and her siblings. "You're right," she murmured finally. "We can't stay in this smoky air much longer, or we'll become asphyxiated. The shelter of the trunk is our only hope."

"Yes!" Sonic whispered. "Two!"

The Hedge children stood up and scurried into the trunk of Count Eggman's car. The trunk was damp and smelled terrible, but the children crawled deep into its depths so they wouldn't be seen.

"Wait!" the powder-faced woman called, and the Hedges felt the slap of the medical coats being tossed on top of them. "I don't want to be left behind! I can't breathe out here!"

"Will we be able to breathe in here?" Tails asked Amy as quietly as she could.

"Yes," Amy said. "Air will come through the bullet holes. This is not the sort of shelter I had in mind, but I guess it might do."

"Golos," Sonic said, which meant "It'll have to do, until something better comes along," and her siblings nodded.

"Three!"

The trunk slammed closed, leaving them in utter darkness, and their shelter rattled and shook as Eggman started the engine and began to drive across the landscape, which was as flat and desolate as ever. But the children could not see outside, of course. In the blackness of the trunk, they could not see anything at all. They could only hear their long, shivering breaths as the air rushed through the bullet holes, and feel their shoulders tremble as they shivered in fear. It was not the sort of shelter the children had in mind, never in their entire lives, but as they huddled together they guessed it might do. For the Hedge orphans-if indeed they

were still orphans-the shelter of Count Eggman's trunk would have to do, until something better came along.

To my kind editor

I hope that this letter is not mangled by the ferocious and deadly ... in which I am hiding now. ... thirteen hundred nineteen and one-Half miles (DOOBY kilometers) from the restaraunt where you celebrated your most recent birthday ... may then exchange (at a near laundromat or jewelry store for ... with ... a long mustache. She will give you the complete manuscript of THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL, along with a satchel contain ... - under which no circumstances should you repair - ... he last ... survivor of the Hed ... a sketch ... of Chabo, the Wolf Baby, and Madame Lulu ... or at least, what is left o .

.. Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Hedge orphans can finally be told to the general public.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket


	10. Carnivorous Carnival

_F_ _o_ _r_ _Cr_ _eam_ _—_

 _Our love broke my hear t,_ _and stopped yours._

 _R_

One

 _When_ my workday is over, and I have closed my notebook, hidden my pen, and sawed holes in my rented canoe so that it cannot be found, I often like to spend the evening in conversation with my few surviving friends. Sometimes we discuss literature. Sometimes we discuss the people who are trying to destroy us, and if there is any hope of escaping from them. And some- times we discuss frightening and troublesome animals that might be nearby, and this topic always leads to much disagreement over which part of a frightening and troublesome beast is the most frightening and troublesome. Some say the teeth of the beast, because teeth are used for eating children, and often their parents, and

gnawing their bones. Some say the claws of the beast, because claws are used for ripping things to shreds. And some say the hair of the beast, because hair can make allergic people sneeze.

But I always insist that the most frightening part of any beast is its belly, for the simple rea- son that if you are seeing the belly of the beast it means you have already seen the teeth of the beast and the claws of the beast and even the hair of the beast, and now you are trapped and there is probably no hope for you. For this rea- son, the phrase "in the belly of the beast" has become an expression which means "inside some terrible place with little chance of escap- ing safely," and it is not an expression one should look forward to using.

I'm sorry to tell you that this book will use the expression "the belly of the beast" three times before it is over, not counting all of the times I have already used "the belly of the beast" in order to warn you of all the times "the belly of the beast" will appear. Three times over

the course of this story, characters will be inside some terrible place with little chance of escap- ing safely, and for that reason I would put this book down and escape safely yourself, because this woeful story is so very dark and wretched and damp that the experience of reading it will make you feel as if you are in the belly of the beast, and that time doesn't count either.

The Hedge orphans were in the belly of the beast—that is, in the dark and cramped trunk of a long, black automobile. Unless you are a small, portable object, you probably prefer to sit in a seat when you are traveling by automobile, so you can lean back against the upholstery, look out the window at the scenery going by, and feel safe and secure with a seat belt fastened low and tight across your lap. But the Hedges could not lean back, and their bodies were aching from squishing up against one another for sev- eral hours. They had no window to look out of, only a few bullet holes in the trunk made from some violent encounter I have not found the

courage to research. And they felt anything but safe and secure as they thought about the other passengers in the car, and tried to imagine where they were going.

The driver of the automobile was a man named Count Eggman, a wicked person with one eyebrow instead of two and a greedy desire for money instead of respect for other people. The Hedges had first met Count Eggman after receiving the news that their parents had been killed in a terrible fire, and had soon discovered he was only interested in the enormous fortune their mother and father had left behind. With unceasing determination—a phrase which here means "no matter where the three children went"—Count Eggman had pursued them, trying one dastardly technique after another to get his hands on their fortune. So far he had been unsuccessful, although he'd had plenty of help from his girlfriend, Eudora Squalor—an equally wicked, if more fashionable, person who was now sitting beside him in the front seat of the

automobile—and an assortment of assistants, including a bald man with an enormous nose, two women who liked to wear white powder all over their faces, and a nasty man who had hooks instead of hands. All of these people were sit- ting in the back of the automobile, where the children could sometimes hear them speaking over the roar of the engine and the sounds of the road.

One would think, with such a wretched crew as traveling companions, that the Hedge siblings would have found some other way to travel rather than sneaking into the trunk, but the three children had been fleeing from circumstances even more frightening and dangerous than Eggman and his assistants and there had been no time to be choosy. But as their journey wore on, Tails, Amy, and Sonic grew more and more worried about their situation. The sunlight coming in through the bullet holes faded to evening, and the road beneath them turned bumpy and rough, and the Hedge

orphans tried to imagine where it was they were going and what would happen when they got there.

"Are we there yet?" The voice of the hook- handed man broke a long silence.

"I told you not to ask me that anymore," replied Eggman with a snarl. "We'll get there when we get there, and that is that."

"Could we possibly make a short stop?" asked one of the white-faced women. "I noticed a sign for a rest station in a few miles."

"We don't have time to stop anywhere," Eggman said sharply. "If you needed to use the bath- room, you should have gone before we left."

"But the hospital was on fire," the woman whined.

"Yes, let's stop," said the bald man. "We haven't had anything to eat since lunch, and my stomach is grumbling."

"We can't stop," Eudora said. "There are no restaurants out here in the hinterlands that are in."

Tails, who was the eldest of the Hedges, stretched to place his hand on Amy's stiff shoulder, and held his baby brother, Sonic, even tighter, as if to communicate with his siblings without speaking. Eudora Squalor was constantly talking about whether or not things were in—a word she liked to use for "stylish"—but the children were more interested in overhearing where the car was taking them. The hinter- lands were a vast and empty place very far from the very outskirts of the city, without even a small village for hundreds of miles. Long ago the Hedge parents had promised they would bring their children there someday to see the famous hinterlands sunsets. Amy, who was a voracious reader, had read descriptions of the sunsets that had made the whole family eager to go, and Tails, who had a real talent for inventing things, had even begun building a solar oven so the family could enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches as they watched the dark blue light spread eerily over the hinterlands

cacti while the sun slowly sank behind the distant and frosty Mortmain Mountains. Never did the three siblings imagine that they would visit the hinterlands by themselves, stuffed in the trunk of a car of a villain.

"Boss, are you sure it's safe to be way out here?" asked the hook-handed man. "If the police come looking for us, there'll be no place to hide."

"We could always disguise ourselves again," the bald man said. "Everything we need is in the trunk of the car.

"We don't need to hide," Eggman replied, "and we don't need to disguise ourselves, either. Thanks to that silly reporter at _The_ _Daily_ _Punctilio,_ the whole world thinks I'm dead, remember?"

"You're dead," Eudora said with a nasty chuckle, "and the three Hedge brats are murderers. We don't need to hide—we need to celebrate!"

"We can't celebrate yet," Eggman said. "There

are two last things we need to do. First, we need to destroy the last piece of evidence that could send us to jail."

"The Snicket file," Eudora said, and the Hedges shuddered in the trunk. The three children had found one page of the Snicket file, which was now safe in Amy's pocket. It was difficult to tell from only one page, but the Snicket file seemed to contain information about a survivor of a fire, and the Hedges were eager to find the remaining pages before Eggman did.

"Yes, of course," the hook-handed man said. "We have to find the Snicket file. But what's the second thing?"

"We have to find the Hedges, you idiot," Eggman snarled. "If we don't find them, then we can't steal their fortune, and all of my schemes will be a waste."

"I haven't found your schemes to be a waste," said one of the white-faced women. "I've enjoyed them very much, even if we haven't gotten the fortune."

"Do you think all three of those bratty orphans got out of the hospital alive?" the bald man asked.

"Those children seem to have all the luck in the world," Count Eggman said, "so they're all probably alive and well, but it would sure make things easier if one or two of them burned to a crisp. We only need one of them alive to get the fortune."

"I hope it's Sonic," the hook-handed man said. "It was fun putting him in a cage, and I look forward to doing it again."

"I myself hope it's Amy," Eggman said. "She's the prettiest."

"I don't care who it is," Eudora said. "I just want to know where they are. But personally I prefer Tails as he will get it first."

"Well, Madame Lulu will know," Eggman said. "With her crystal ball, she'll be able to tell us where the orphans are, where the file is, and anything else we want to know."

"I never believed in things like crystal balls," remarked a white-faced woman, "but when this

Madame Lulu started telling you how to find the Hedges every time they escaped, I learned that fortune-telling is real."

"Stick with me," Eggman said, "and you'll learn lots of new things. Oh, here's the turn for Rarely Ridden Road. We're almost there."

The car lurched to the left, and the Hedges lurched with it, rolling to the left-hand side of the trunk, along with the many items Eggman kept in his car to help with his dastardly plots. Tails tried not to cough as one of his fake beards tickled his throat. Amy held her hand up to her face so that a sliding toolbox wouldn't break her glasses. And Sonic shut his mouth tightly so she wouldn't get one of Eggman's dirty undershirts tangled in his sharp teeth. Rarely Ridden Road was even bumpier than the highway they had been traveling on, and the car made so much noise that the children could not hear any more of the conversation until Eggman pulled the automobile to a creaky stop.

"Are we there yet?" the hook-handed man asked.

"Of course we're here, you fool," Eggman said. "Look, there's the sign—Caligari Carnival."

"Where is Madame Lulu?" asked the bald man.

"Where do you think?" Eudora asked, and everyone laughed. The doors of the automobile opened with a scraping sound, and the car lurched again as everyone piled out.

"Should I get the wine out of the trunk, boss?" the bald man asked.

The Hedges froze.

"No," Count Eggman replied. "Madame Lulu will have plenty of refreshments for us."

The three children lay very still and listened as Eggman and his troupe trudged away from the car. Their footsteps grew fainter and fainter until the siblings could hear nothing but the evening breeze as it whistled through the bullet holes, and at last it seemed safe for the Hedge orphans to speak to one another.

"What are we going to do?" Tails whispered, pushing the beard away from him.

"Merrill," Sonic said. Like many people his age, the youngest Hedge sometimes used language that was difficult for some people to understand, but his siblings knew at once that he meant something like, "We'd better get out of this trunk."

"As soon as possible," Amy agreed. "We don't know how soon Eggman and his troupe will return. Tails, do you think you can invent something to get us out of here?"

"It shouldn't be too hard," Tails said, "with all this stuff in the trunk." he reached out his hand and felt around until he found the mech- anism that was keeping the trunk closed. "I've studied this kind of latch before," he said. "All I need to move it is a loop of strong twine. Feel around and see if we can find something."

"There's something wrapped around my left arm," Amy said, squirming around. "It feels like it might be part of the turban Eggman wore

when he disguised himself as Coach Genghis." "That's too thick," Tails said. "It needs to

slip between two parts of the lock." "Semja!" Sonic said.

"That's my shoelace, Sonic," Amy said. "We'll save that as a last resort," Tails said.

"We can't have you tripping all over the place if we're going to escape. Wait, I think I found something underneath the spare tire."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," Tails said. "It feels like a skinny cord with something round and flat at the end."

"I bet it's a monocle," Amy said. "You know, that funny eyepiece Eggman wore when he was pretending to be Gunther, the auctioneer."

"I think you're right," Tails said. "Well, this monocle helped Eggman with his scheme, and now it's going to help us with ours. Sonic, try to move over a bit so I can see if this will work." Sonic squirmed over as far as he could, and Tails reached around his siblings and slipped

the cord of Eggman's monocle around the lock of the trunk. The three children listened as Tails wiggled his invention around the latch, and after only a few seconds they heard a quiet _click!_ and the door of the trunk swung open with a long, slow _creeeak._ As the cool air rushed in, the Hedges stayed absolutely still in case the noise of the trunk caught Eggman's attention, but apparently he and his assistants were too far away to hear, because after a few seconds the children could hear nothing but the chirping of the evening crickets and the faint barking of a dog.

The Hedges looked at one another, squinting in the dim light, and without another word Tails and Amy climbed out of the trunk and then lifted their brother out into the night. The famous hinterlands sunset was just ending, and everything the children saw was bathed in the purest of dark blue, as if Count Eggman had driven them into the depths of the ocean. There was a large wooden sign with the words

CALIGARI CARNIVAL

printed in old-fashioned script, along with a faded painting of a lion chasing a frightened little boy. Behind the sign was a small booth advertising tickets for sale, and a phone booth that gleamed in the blue light. Behind these two booths was an enormous roller coaster, a phrase which here means "a series of small carts where people can sit and race up and down steep and frightening hills of tracks, for no discernible reason," but it was clear, even in the fading light, that the roller coaster had not been used for quite some time, because the tracks and carts were overgrown with ivy and other winding plants, which made the carnival attraction look as if it were about to sink into the earth. Past the roller coaster was a row of enormous tents, shivering in the evening breeze like jellyfish, and alongside each tent was a caravan, which is a wheeled carriage used as a home by people who travel frequently. The caravans and tents all had different designs painted on the sides, but the Hedges knew at once

which caravan was Madame Lulu's because it was decorated with an enormous eye. The eye matched the one tattooed on Count Eggman's left ankle, the one the Hedges had seen many times in their lives, and it made them shiver to think they could not escape it even in the hinterlands.

"Now that we're out of the trunk," Amy said, "let's get out of the area. Eggman and his troupe could get back any minute."

"But where are we going to go?" Tails asked. "We're in the hinterlands. Eggman's comrade said there was no place to hide."

"Well, we'll have to find one," Amy said. "It can't be safe to hang around any place where Count Eggman is welcome."

"Eye!" Sonic agreed, pointing to Madame Lulu's caravan.

"But we can't go wandering around the countryside again," Tails said. "The last time we did that, we ended up in even more trouble." "Maybe we could call the police from that

phone booth," Amy said.

"Dragnet!" Sonic said, which meant "But the police think we're murderers!"

"I suppose we could try to reach Mr. Silver Poe," Tails said. "He didn't answer the telegram we sent him asking for help, but maybe we'll have better luck on the phone."

The three siblings looked at one another without much hope. Mr. Silver Poe was the Vice President of Orphan Affairs at Mulctuary Money Management, a large bank in the city, and part of his job was overseeing the Hedges' affairs after the fire. Mr. Silver Poe was not a wicked person, but he had mistakenly placed them in the company of so much wickedness that he had been almost as wicked as an actual wicked person, and the children were not particularly eager to contact him again, even if it was all they could think of, even if he never belives the news that they were killrs.

"It's probably a slim chance that he'll be of any help," Tails admitted, "but what have we got to lose?"

"Let's not think about that," Amy replied, and walked over to the phone booth. "Maybe Mr. Silver Poe will at least allow us to explain our- selves."

"Veriz," Sonic said, which meant some- thing like, "We'll need money to make a phone call."

"I don't have any," Amy said, reaching into her pockets. "Do you have any money, Tails?" Tails shook his head. "Let's call the operator and see if there's some way we can place a

call without paying for it."

Amy nodded, and opened the door of the booth so she and her siblings could crowd inside. Tails lifted the receiver and dialed O for operator, while Amy lifted up Sonic so all three siblings could hear the conversation.

"Operator," said the operator.

"Good evening," Tails said. "My siblings and I would like to place a call."

"Please deposit the proper amount of money," the operator said.

"We don't have the proper amount of money," Tails said. "We don't have any money at all. But this is an emergency."

There was a faint wheezing noise from the phone, and the Hedges realized that the operator was sighing. "What is the exact nature of your emergency?"

Tails looked down at her siblings and saw the last of the sunset's blue light reflecting off Amy's glasses and Sonic's teeth. As the dark closed around them, the nature of their emergency seemed so enormous that it would take the rest of the night to explain it to the telephone operator, and the eldest Hedge tried to figure out how she could summarize, a word which here means "tell their story in a way that would convince the operator to let them talk to Mr. Silver Poe."

"Well," he began, "my name is Tails Hedge, and I'm here with my sister, Amy, and my brother, Sonic. Our names might sound a bit familiar to you, because _The Daily Punctilio_

has recently published an article saying that we're Troy, Amelia, and Sammy Hedge, and that we're murderers who killed Count Redman. But Count Redman is really Count Eggman, and he's not really dead. He faked his death by killing another person with the same tattoo, and framed us for the murder. Recently he destroyed a hospital while trying to capture us, but we managed to hide in the trunk of his car as he drove off with his comrades. Now we've gotten out of the trunk, and we're trying to reach Mr. Silver Poe so he can help us get ahold of the Snicket file, which we think might explain what the initials V.F.D. stand for, and if one of our parents survived the fire after all. I know it's a very complicated story, and it may seem unbelievable to you, but we're all by ourselves in the hinterlands and we don't know what else to do." The story was so terrible that Tails had cried a little while telling it, and he brushed a tear from his eye as he waited for a reply from the operator. But no voice came out of the phone.

The three Hedges listened carefully, but all they could hear was the empty and distant sound of a telephone line.

"Hello?" Tails said finally. The telephone said nothing.

"Hello?" Tails said again. "Hello? Hello?" The telephone did not answer.

" _Hello?"_ Tails said, as loud as he dared.

"I think we'd better hang up," Amy said gently.

"But why isn't anyone answering?" Tails cried.

"I don't know," Amy said, "but I don't think the operator will help us."

Tails hung up the phone and opened the door of the booth. Now that the sun was down the air was getting colder, and he shivered in the evening breeze. "Who will help us?" he asked. "Who will take care of us?"

"We'll have to take care of ourselves," Amy said.

"Ephrai," Sonic said, which meant "But

we're in real trouble now."

"We sure are," Tails agreed. "We're in the middle of nowhere, with no place to hide, and the whole world thinks we're criminals. How do criminals take care of themselves out in the hinterlands?"

The Hedges heard a burst of laughter, as if in reply. The laughter was quite faint, but in the still of the evening it made the children jump. Sonic pointed, and the children could see a light in one of the windows in Madame Lulu's caravan. Several shadows moved across the window, and the children could tell that Count Eggman and his troupe were inside, chatting and laughing while the Hedge orphans shivered outside in the gloom.

"Let's go see," Amy said. "Let's go find out how criminals take care of themselves."

 _R_

Two

 _Eavesdropping_ —a word which here means "lis- tening in on interesting conversations you are not invited to join"—is a valuable thing to do, and it is often an enjoyable thing to do, but it is not a polite thing to do, and like most impolite things, you are bound to get into

trouble if you get caught doing it. Hedge orphans, of course, had plenty of experience not getting caught, so the three children knew how to walk as quietly as possible across the

grounds of Caligari Carnival, and how to crouch as invisibly as possible outside the window of Madame Lulu's caravan. If you had been there that eerie blue evening—and nothing in my re- search indicates that you were—you wouldn't have heard even the slightest rustle from the Hedges as they eavesdropped on their ene- mies.

Count Eggman and his troupe, however, were making plenty of noise. "Madame Lulu!" Count Eggman was roaring as the children pressed up against the side of the caravan so that they would be hidden in the shadows. "Madame Lulu, pour us some wine! Arson and escaping from the authorities always makes me very thirsty!"

"I'd prefer buttermilk, served in a paper car- ton," Eudora said. "That's the new in beverage." "Five glasses of wine and a carton of but- termilk coming up, please," answered a lilac cat in an accent the children recognized. Not so long ago, when Eudora Squalor had been the

Hedges' caretaker, Eggman had disguised him- self as a person who did not speak English well, and as part of his disguise, he had spoken in an accent very similar to the one they were hearing now. The Hedges tried to peer through the window and catch a glimpse of the fortune- teller, but Madame Lulu had shut her curtains tightly. "I'm thrilled, please, to see you, my Eggman. Welcome to the caravan of mine. How is life for you?"

"We've been swamped at work," the hook- handed man said, using a phrase which here means "chasing after innocent children for quite some time." "Those three orphans have been very difficult to capture."

"Do not worry of the children, please," Madame Lulu replied. "My crystal ball tells me that my Eggman will prevail."

"If that means 'murder innocent children,'" one of the white-faced women said, "then that's the best news we've heard all day."

"'Prevail' means 'win,'" Eggman said, "but in my

case that's the same thing as killing those Hedges. Exactly when does the crystal ball say I will prevail, Lulu?"

"Very soon, please," Madame Lulu replied. "What gifts have you brought me from your traveling, my Eggman?"

"Well, let's see," Eggman replied. "There's a lovely pearl necklace I stole from one of the nurses at Heimlich Hospital."

"You promised me _I_ could have that," Eudora said. "Give her one of those crow hats you snatched from the Village of Fowl Devotees. Or that ruby ring from that janitor from Heimlich Hospital, rubies on golden rings are VERY out"

"I tell you, Lulu," Eggman said, "your fortune- telling abilities are amazing. I never would have guessed that the Hedges were hiding out in that stupid town, but your crystal ball knew right away."

"Magic is magic, please," Lulu replied. "More wine, my Eggman?"

"Thank you," Eggman said. "Now, Lulu, we need your fortune-telling abilities once more."

"The Hedge brats slipped away from us

again," the bald man said, "and the boss was hoping you'd be able to tell us where they went."

"Also," the hook-handed man said, "we need to know where the Snicket file is."

"And we need to know if one of the Hedge parents survived the fire," Eudora said. "The orphans seem to think so, but your crystal ball could tell us for sure."

"And I'd like some more wine," one of the white-faced women said.

"So many demands you make," Madame Lulu said in her strange accent. "Madame Lulu remembers, please, when you would visit only for the pleasure of my company, my Eggman."

"There isn't time for that tonight," Eggman replied quickly. "Can't you consult your crystal ball right now?"

"You know rules of crystal ball, my Eggman," Lulu replied. "At night the crystal ball must be sleeping in the fortune-telling tent, and at sun- rise you may ask one question."

"Then I'll ask my first question tomorrow morning," Eggman said, "and we'll stay until all my questions are answered."

"Oh, my Eggman," Madame Lulu said. "Please, times are very hard for Caligari Carnival. Is not good business idea to have carnival in hinterlands, so there are not many people to see Madame Lulu or crystal ball. Caligari Carnival gift caravan has lousy souvenirs. And Madame Lulu has not enough freaks, please, in the House of Freaks. You visit, my Eggman, with troupe, and stay many days, drink my wine and eat all of my snackings."

"This roast chicken is very delicious," the hook-handed man said.

"Madame Lulu has no money, please," Lulu continued. "Is hard, my Eggman, to do fortune- telling for you when Madame Lulu is so poor. The caravan of mine has leaky roof, and Madame Lulu needs money, please, to do repairs."

"I've told you before," Eggman said, "once we

get the Hedge fortune, the carnival will have plenty of money."

"You said that about Quagmire fortune, my Eggman," Madame Lulu said, "and about Snicket fortune. But never a penny does Madame Lulu see. I think I can sell the ring, but it won't be enouth. We must think, please, of something to make Caligari Carnival more popular. Madame Lulu was hoping that troupe of my Eggman could put on a big show like _The Marvelous Marriage._ Many people would come to see."

"The boss can't get up on stage," the bald man said. "Planning schemes is a full-time job." "Besides," Eudora said, "I've retired from show business. All I want to be now is Count

Eggman's girlfriend."

There was a silence, and the only thing the Hedges could hear from Lulu's caravan was the crunch of someone chewing on chicken bones. Then there was a long sigh, and Lulu spoke very quietly. "You did not tell me, my Eggman, that Eudora was the girlfriend of you. Perhaps Madame Lulu will not let you and troupe

stay at the carnival of mine."

"Now, now, Lulu," Count Eggman said, and the children shivered as they eavesdropped. Eggman was talking in a tone of voice the Hedges had heard many times, when he was trying to fool someone into thinking he was a kind and decent person. Even with the curtains closed, the Hedges could tell that he was giving Madame Lulu a toothy grin, and that his eyes were shining brightly beneath his one eyebrow, as if he were about to tell a joke. "Did I ever tell you how I began my career as an actor?"

"It's a fascinating story," the hook-handed man said.

"It certainly is," Eggman agreed. "Give me some more wine, and I'll tell you. Now then, as a child, I was always the most handsome fellow at school, and one day a young director . . ."

The Hedges had heard enough. The three children had spent enough time with the villain to know that once he began talking about himself, he continued until the cows came home,

a phrase which here means "until there was no more wine," and they tiptoed away from Madame Lulu's caravan and back toward Count Eggman's car so they could talk without being over- heard. In the dark of night, the long, black automobile looked like an enormous hole, and the children felt as if they were about to fall into it as they tried to decide what to do.

"I guess we should leave," Amy said un- certainly. "It's definitely not safe around here, but I don't know where we can go in the hinter- lands. There's nothing for miles and miles but wilderness, and we could die of thirst, or be attacked by wild animals."

Tails looked around quickly, as if something were about to attack them that very moment, but the only wild animal in view was the painted lion on the carnival sign. "Even if we found someone else out there," she said, "they'd probably think we were murderers and call the police. Also, Madame Lulu promised to answer all of Eggman's questions tomorrow morning."

"You don't think Madame Lulu's crystal ball really works, do you?" Amy asked. "I've never read any evidence that fortune-telling is real."

"But Madame Lulu keeps telling Count Eggman where we are," Tails pointed out. "She must be getting her information from someplace. If she can really find out the location of the Snicket file, or learn if one of our parents is alive . . ."

Her voice trailed off, but she did not need to finish her sentence. All three Hedges knew that finding out if someone survived the fire was worth the risk of staying nearby.

"Sandover," Sonic said, which meant "So we're staying."

"We should at least stay the night," Amy agreed. "But where can we hide? If we don't stay out of sight, someone is likely to recog- nize us."

"Karneez?" Sonic asked.

"The people in those caravans work for Madame Lulu," Amy said. "Who knows if they'd

help us or not?"

"I have an idea," Tails said, and walked over to the back of Count Eggman's car. With a _creeeak,_ he opened the trunk again and leaned down inside.

"Nuts!" Sonic said, which meant "I don't think that's such a good idea, Tails."

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "Eggman and his henchmen might come back any minute to unpack the trunk. We can't hide in there."

"We're not going to hide in there," Tails said. "We're not going to hide at all. After all, Eggman and his troupe never hide, and they manage not to be recognized. We're going to disguise ourselves."

"Gabrowha?" Sonic asked.

"Why wouldn't it work?" Tails replied. "Eggman wears these disguises and he manages to fool everyone. If we fool Madame Lulu into thinking we're somebody else, we can stay around and find the answers to our questions."

"It seems risky," Amy said, "but I suppose

it's just as risky as trying to hide someplace. Who should we pretend to be?"

"Let's look through the disguises," Tails said, "and see if we get any ideas."

"We'll have to feel through them," Amy said. "It's too dark to look through anything."

The Hedges stood in front of the open trunk and reached inside to begin their search. As I'm sure you know, whenever you are examining someone else's belongings, you are bound to learn many interesting things about the person of which you were not previously aware. You might examine some letters your sister received recently, for instance, and learn that she was planning on running away with an archduke. You might examine the suitcases of another pas- senger on a train you are taking, and learn that he had been secretly photographing you for the past six months. I recently looked in the refrigerator of one of my friend-enemy and learned she was a vegetarian, or at least pretending to be one, or had a vegetarian visiting her for a few days. And

as the Hedge orphans examined some of the objects in Eggman's trunk, they learned a great deal of unpleasant things. Tails found part of a brass lamp he remembered from living with Uncle Knuckles, and learned that Eggman had stolen from his poor guardian, in addition to murdering him. Amy found a large shopping bag from the In Boutique, and learned that Eudora Squalor was just as obsessed with fashionable clothing as she ever was. And Sonic found a pair of pantyhose covered in sawdust, and learned that Eggman had not washed his receptionist disguise since he had used it last. But the most dismaying thing the children learned from searching the trunk of Eggman's car was just how many disguises he had at his disposal. They found the hat Eggman used to disguise himself as a ship captain, and the razor he had probably used to shave his head in order to resemble a lab assistant. They found the expensive running shoes he had worn to disguise himself as a gym teacher, and the plastic ones he had used when he was pretending to be

a detective. But the siblings also found plenty of costumes they had never seen before, and it seemed as though Eggman could keep on disguising himself forever, following the Hedges to location after location, always appearing with a new identity and never getting caught.

"We could disguise ourselves as almost any- body," Tails said. "Look, here's a wig that makes me look like a clown, and here's one that makes me look like a judge."

"I know," Amy said, holding up a large box with several drawers. "This appears to be a makeup kit, complete with fake mustaches, fake eyebrows, and even a pair of glass eyes."

"Twicho!" Sonic said, holding up a long white veil.

"No, thank you," Amy said. "I already had to wear that veil once, when Eggman nearly married me. I'd rather not wear it again. Besides, what would a bride be doing wandering around the hinterlands?"

"Look at this long robe," Amy said. "It looks

like something a rabbi would wear, but I don't know if Madame Lulu would believe that a rabbi would visit her in the middle of the night."

"Ginawn!" Sonic said, using her teeth to wrap a pair of sweatpants around her. The youngest Hedge meant something like, "All these clothes are too big for me," and she was right.

"That's even bigger than that pinstripe suit Eudora bought you," Amy said, helping his sis- ter get disentangled. "No one would believe that a pair of sweatpants was walking around a carnival by itself."

"All these clothes are too big," Tails said. "Look at this beige coat. If I tried to disguise myself in it, I'd only look freakish."

"Freakish!" Amy said. "That's it!" "Whazit?" Sonic asked.

"Madame Lulu said that she didn't have enough freaks in the House of Freaks. If we find disguises that make us look freakish, and

tell Lulu that we're looking for work, she might hire us as part of the carnival."

"But what exactly do freaks do?" Tails asked.

"I read a book once about a man named John Merrick," Amy said. "He had horrible birth defects that made him look terribly deformed. A carnival put him on display as part of a House of Freaks, and people paid money to go into a tent and look at him."

"Why would people want to look at some- one with birth defects?" Tails asked. "It sounds cruel."

"It was cruel," Amy said. "The crowd often threw things at Mr. Merrick, and called him names. I'm afraid the House of Freaks isn't a very pleasant form of entertainment."

"You'd think someone would put a stop to it," Tails said, "but you'd think somebody would put a stop to Count Eggman, too, and nobody does."

"Radev," Sonic said with a nervous look

around them. By "Radev," she meant "Some- body's going to put a stop to _us_ if we don't dis- guise ourselves soon," and her siblings nodded solemnly in agreement.

"Here's some kind of fancy shirt," Amy said. "It's covered in ruffles and bows. And here's an enormous pair of pants with fur on the cuffs."

"Could both of us wear them at once?" Tails asked.

"Both of us?" Amy said. "I suppose so, if we kept on our clothes underneath, so Eggman's would fit. We could each stand on one leg, and tuck our other legs inside. We'd have to lean against one another as we walked, but I think it might work."

"And we could do the same thing with the shirt," Tails said. "We could each put one arm through a sleeve and keep the other tucked inside."

"But we couldn't hide one of our heads," Amy pointed out, "and with both of our heads

poking out of the top we'd look like some sort of—"

"—two-headed person," Tails finished, "and a two-headed person is exactly what a House of Freaks would put on display."

"That's good thinking," Amy said. "People won't be on the lookout for a two-headed per- son. But we'll need to disguise our faces, too."

"The makeup kit will take care of that," Tails said. "Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in that play about the murderer."

"And here's a can of talcum powder," Amy said. "We can use this to whiten our hair."

"Do you think Count Eggman will notice that these things are missing from his trunk?" Tails asked.

"I doubt it," Amy said. "The trunk isn't very well organized, and I don't think he's used some of these disguises for a long time. I think we can take enough to become a two-headed person without Eggman missing anything."

"Beriu?" Sonic said, which meant "What about me?"

"These disguises are made for fully grown people," Tails said, "but I'm sure we can find you something. Maybe you could fit inside one of these shoes, and be a person with just a head and one foot. That's plenty freakish."

"Chelish," Sonic said, which meant some- thing along the lines of, "I'm too big to fit inside a shoe."

"That's true," Amy said. "It's been a while since you were shoe-sized." He reached inside the trunk and pulled out something short and hairy, as if he had caught a raccoon. "But this might work," he said. "I think this is the fake beard Eggman wore when he was pretending to be Stephano. It's a long beard, so it might work as a short disguise."

"Let's find out," Tails said, "and let's find out quickly."

The Hedges found out quickly. In just a few minutes, the children found out just how

easy it was to transform themselves into entirely different people. Tails, Amy, and Sonic had some experience in disguising themselves, of course—Amy and Sonic had used medical coats at Heimlich Hospital in a plan to rescue Tails, and even Sonic could remember when all three siblings had occasionally worn costumes for their own amusement, back when they had lived in the Hedge mansion with their parents. But this time, the Hedge orphans felt more like Count Eggman and his troupe, as they worked quietly and hurriedly in the night to erase all traces of their true identities. Tails felt through the makeup kit until he found several pencils that were normally used to make one's eyebrows more dramatic, and even though it was simple and painless to draw scars on Amy's face, it felt as if she were breaking the promise he made to her parents, a very long time ago, that he would always look after his siblings and keep them away from harm. Amy helped Sonic wrap herself in Eggman's fake

beard, but when he saw her eyes and the tips of her teeth peeking out of the mass of scratchy hair, it felt as if he had fed his baby sister to some tiny but hungry animal. And as Sonic helped her siblings button themselves into the fancy shirt and sprinkle talcum on their hair to turn it gray, it felt as if they were melting into Eggman's clothes. The three Hedges looked at one another carefully but it was as if there were no Hedges there at all, just two strangers, one with two heads and the other with a head that was covered in fur, all alone in the hinter- lands.

"I think we look utterly unrecognizable," Amy said, turning with difficulty to face her older brother. "Maybe it's because I took off my glasses, but to me we don't look a thing like ourselves."

"Will you be able to see without your glasses?" Tails asked.

"If I squint," Amy said, squinting. "I can't read like this, but I won't be bumping into

things. If I keep them on, Count Eggman will probably recognize me."

"Then you'd better keep them off," Tails said, "and I'll stop wearing a ribbon in my bangs."

"We'd better disguise our voices, too," Amy said. "I'll try to speak as high as I can, and why

don't you try to speak in a low voice, Tails?" "Good idea," Tails said, in as low a voice as

he could. "And Sonic, you should probably just growl."

"Grr," Sonic tried.

"You sound like a wolf," Tails said, still practicing his disguised tone. "Let's tell Madame Lulu that you're half wolf and half person."

"That would be a miserable experience," Amy said, in the highest voice she could man- age. "But I suppose being born with two heads wouldn't be any easier."

"We'll explain to Lulu that we've had mis- erable experiences, but now we're hoping things will get better working at the carnival," Tails said, and then sighed. "That's one thing

we don't have to pretend. We _have_ had miser- able experiences, and we _are_ hoping that things will get better here. We're almost as freakish as we're pretending to be."

"Don't say that," Amy said, and then remembered his new voice. "Don't say that," she said again, at a much higher pitch. "We're not freaks. We're still the Hedges, even if we're wearing Eggman's disguises."

"I know," Tails said, in his new voice, "but it's a little confusing pretending to be a completely different person."

"Grr," Sonic growled in agreement, and the three children put the rest of Count Eggman's things back in the trunk, and walked in silence to Madame Lulu's caravan. It was awkward for Tails and Amy to walk in the same pair of pants, and Sonic had to keep stopping to brush the beard out of her eyes. It _was_ confusing pre- tending to be completely different people, par- ticularly because it had been so long since the Hedges were able to be the people they

really were. Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not think of themselves as the sort of children who hid in the trunks of automobiles, or who wore disguises, or who tried to get jobs at the House of Freaks. But the siblings could scarcely re- member when they had been able to relax and do the things they liked to do best. It seemed ages since Tails had been able to sit around and think of inventions, instead of frantically building something to get them out of trouble. Amy could barely remember the last book she had read for her own enjoyment, instead of as research to defeat one of Eggman's schemes. And Sonic had used his teeth and speed many, many times to escape from difficult situations, but it had been quite a while since he had bitten something or run recreationally. As the youngsters approached the caravan, it seemed as if each awkward step took them further and further from their real lives as Hedges, and into their disguised lives as carnival freaks, and it was indeed very confusing. When Sonic knocked on the door, Madame

Lulu called out, "Who's there?" and for the first time in their lives, it was a confusing question.

"We're freaks," Tails answered, in her dis- guised voice. "We're three—I mean, we're two freaks looking for work."

The door opened with a creak, and the children got their first look at Madame Lulu. She was wearing a long, shimmering light blue robe that seemed to change colors as she moved, and a turban that looked very much like the one Count Eggman had worn back at Prufrock Preparatory School. She was a lilac cat who had dark, piercing eyes, with two dramatic eyebrows hovering suspiciously as she looked them over. Behind her, sitting at a small round table, were Count Eggman, Eudora Squalor, and Eggman's comrades, who were all staring at the youngsters curiously. And as if all those curious eyes weren't enough, there was one more eye gazing at the Hedges—a glass eye, attached to a chain around Madame Lulu's neck. The eye matched the one painted on her caravan, and the one tattooed on Count Eggman's

ankle. It was an eye that seemed to follow the Hedges wherever they went, drawing them deeper and deeper into the troubling mystery of their lives.

"Walk in, please," Madame Lulu said in her strange accent, and the disguised children obeyed. As freakishly as they could, the Hedge orphans walked in, taking a few steps closer to all those staring eyes, and a few steps further from the lives they were leaving behind.

R

Three

 _Besides_ getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving the news that someone in your family has betrayed you to your enemies, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. It is very nerve-wracking to explain to someone all the things you can do in the hopes that they will pay you to do them. I once had a very difficult job interview in which I had not only to explain that I could hit an olive with a bow and arrow, memorize up to three pages of poetry, and determine if there

was poison mixed into cheese fondue without tasting it, but I had to demonstrate all these things as well. In most cases, the best strategy for a job interview is to be fairly honest, because the worst thing that can happen is that you won't get the job and will spend the rest of your life foraging for food in the wilderness and seeking shelter underneath a tree or the awning of a bowling alley that has gone out of business, but in the case of the Hedge orphans' job interview with Madame Lulu, the situation was much more desperate. They could not be hon- est at all, because they were disguised as entirely different people, and the worst thing that could happen was being discovered by Count Eggman and his troupe and spending the rest of their lives in circumstances so terrible that the children could not bear to think of them.

"Sit down, please, and Lulu will interview you for carnival job," Madame Lulu said, ges- turing to the round table where Eggman and his

troupe were sitting. Tails and Amy sat down on one chair with difficulty, and Sonic crawled onto another while everyone watched them in silence. The troupe had their elbows on the table and were eating the snacks Lulu had pro- vided with their fingers, while Eudora Squalor sipped her buttermilk, and Count Eggman leaned back in his chair and looked at the Hedges very, very carefully.

"It seems to me you look very familiar," he said.

"Perhaps you have seen before the freaks, my Eggman," Lulu said. "What are names of the freaks?"

"My name is Thomas," Tails said, in his low, disguised voice, inventing a name as quickly as she could invent an ironing board. "And this is my other head, Alexia."

Eggman reached across the table to shake hands, and Tails and Amy had to stop for a moment to figure out whose arm was sticking out of the right-hand sleeve. "It's very nice to meet you

both," he said. "It must be very difficult, having two heads."

"Oh, yes," Amy said, in as high a voice as he could manage. "You can't imagine how trou- blesome it is to find clothing."

"I was just noticing your shirt," Eudora said. "It's very in."

"Just because we're freaks," Tails said, "doesn't mean we don't care about fashion."

"How about eating?" Count Eggman said, his eyes shining brightly. "Do you have trouble eating?"

"Well, I—I mean, well, we—" Amy said, but before she could go on, Eggman grabbed a long ear of corn from a platter on the table and held it toward the two children.

"Let's see how much trouble you have," he snarled, as his henchmen began to giggle. "Eat this ear of corn, you two-headed freak."

"Yes," Madame Lulu agreed. "It is best way to see if you can work in carnival. Eat corn! Eat corn!"

Tails and Amy looked at one another, and then reached out one hand each to take the corn from Eggman and hold it awkwardly in front of their mouths. Tails leaned forward to take the first bite, but the motion of the corn made it slip from Amy's hand and fall back down onto the table, and the room roared with cruel laughter.

"Look at them!" one of the white-faced women laughed. "They can't even eat an ear of corn! How freakish!"

"Try again," Eggman said with a nasty smile. "Pick the corn up from the table, freak."

The children picked up the corn and held it to their mouths once more. Amy squinted and tried to take a bite, but when Tails tried to move the corn to help him, it hit him in the face and everyone—except for Sonic, of course— laughed once more.

"You are funny freaks," Madame Lulu said. She was laughing so hard that she had to wipe her eyes, and when she did, one of her dramatic eyebrows smeared slightly, as if she had a small

bruise above one eye. "Try again, Thomas-and- Alexia freak!"

"This is the funniest thing I've ever seen," said the hook-handed man. "I always thought people with birth defects were unfortunate, but now I realize they're hilarious."

Tails and Amy wanted to point out that a man with hooks for hands would probably have an equally difficult time eating an ear of corn, but they knew that a job interview is rarely a good time to start arguments, so the siblings swallowed their words and began swallowing corn. After a few bites, the children began to get their bearings, a phrase which here means "figure out how two people, using only two hands, can eat one ear of corn at the same time," but it was still quite a difficult task. The ear of corn was greasy with butter that left damp streaks on their mouths or dripped down their chins. Sometimes the ear of corn would be at a perfect angle for one of them to bite, but would be poking the other one in the face. And often the ear of corn

would simply slip out of their hands, and every- one would laugh yet again.

"This is more fun than kidnapping!" said the bald associate of Eggman's, who was shaking with laughter. "Lulu, this freak will have people coming from miles around to watch, and all it will cost you is an ear of corn!"

"Is true, please," Madame Lulu agreed, and looked down at Tails and Amy. "The crowd loves sloppy eating," she said. "You are hired for House of Freaks show."

"How about that other one?" Eudora asked, giggling and wiping buttermilk from her upper lip. "What is that freak, some sort of living scarf?" "Chabo!" Sonic said to his siblings. he meant something like, "I know this is humiliating, but at least our disguises are working!" but

Tails was quick to disguise his translation. "This is Chabo the Wolf Baby," she said, in

his low voice. "His mother was a hunter who fell in love with a handsome wolf after a compeated incident, and this is their poor child."

"I didn't even know that was possible," said the hook-handed man.

"Grr," Sonic growled.

"It might be funny to watch him eat corn, too," said the bald man, and he grabbed another ear of corn and waved it at the youngest Hedge. "Here Chabo! Have an ear of corn!"

Sonic opened his mouth wide, but when the bald man saw the tips of her teeth poking out through the beard, he yanked his hand back in fear.

"Yikes!" he said. "That freak is vicious!" "he's still a bit wild," Amy said, still

speaking as high as he could. "In fact, we got all these horrible scars from teasing her. And do not underestimate his speed"

"Grr," Sonic growled again, and bit a piece of silverware to demonstrate how wild he was, and ran around the caravan as fast as he can, and came back to where he was. "Chabo will be excellent carnival attraction," Madame Lulu pronounced. "People are always liking of violence, please. You are hired,

too, Chabo."

"Just keep him away from me," Eudora said.

"A wolf baby like that would probably ruin my outfit."

"Grr!" Sonic growled.

"Come now, freaky people," Madame Lulu said. "Madame Lulu will show you the caravan, please, where you will do the sleeping."

"We'll stay here and have more wine," Count Eggman said. "Congratulations on the new freaks, Lulu. I knew you'd have good luck with me around."

"Everyone does," Eudora said, and kissed Eggman on the cheek. Madame Lulu scowled, and led the children out of her caravan and into the night.

"Follow me, freaks, please," she said. "You will be living, please, in freaks' caravan. You will share with other freaks. There is Scourge, Rosy, and Miles, all freaks. Every day will be House of Freaks show. Thomas and Alexia, you will be eating of corn, please. Chabo, you will be attacking of audience, please. Are there any freaky questions?"

"Will we be paid?" Amy asked. He was thinking that having some money might help the Hedges, if they learned the answers to their questions and had an opportunity to get away from the carnival.

"No, no, no," Madame Lulu said. "Madame Lulu will be giving no money to the freaks, please. If you are freak, you are lucky that some- one will give you work. Look at man with hooks on hands. He is grateful to do the working for Count Eggman, even though Eggman will not be giving him of the Hedge fortune."

"Count Eggman?" Tails asked, pretending that her worst enemy was a complete stranger. "Is that the gentleman with one eyebrow?"

"That is Eggman," Lulu said. "He is brilliant man, but do not be saying the wrong things to him, please. Madame Lulu always says you must always give people what they want, so always tell Eggman he is brilliant man."

"We'll remember that," Amy said.

"Good, please," Madame Lulu said. "Now,

here is freak caravan. Welcome freaks, to your new home."

The fortune-teller had stopped at a caravan with the word FREAKS painted on it in large, sloppy letters. The letters were smeared and dripping in several places, as if the paint was still wet, but the word was so faded that the Hedges knew the caravan had been labeled many years ago. Next to the caravan was a shabby tent with several holes in it and a sign reading WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF FREAKS,

with a small drawing of a girl with three eyes. Madame Lulu strode past the sign to knock on the caravan's wooden door.

"Freaks!" Madame Lulu cried. "Please wake up, please! New freaks are here for you to say hello!"

"Just a minute, Madame Lulu," called a voice from behind the door.

"No just a minute, please," Madame Lulu said. "Now! I am the boss of the carnival!"

The door swung open to reveal a sleepy-

looking green hedgehog with scars on his chest with a hunchback, a word which here means "a back with a hump near the shoulder, giving the person a somewhat irregular appearance." He was wearing a pair of pajamas that were ripped at the shoulder to make room for his hunchback, and holding a small candle to help him see in the dark. "I know you are the boss, Madame Lulu," the hedgehog said, "but it's the middle of the night. Don't you want your freaks to be well-rested?"

"Madame Lulu does not particularly care about sleep of freaks," Lulu said haughtily. "Please be telling the new freaks what to do for show tomorrow. The freak with two heads will be eating corn, please, and the little wolf freak will be attacking audience."

"Violence and sloppy eating," the man said, and sighed. "I guess the crowd will like that."

"Of course crowd will like," Lulu said, "and then carnival will get much money."

"And then maybe you'll pay us?" the man asked.

"possibly, please," Madame Lulu replied. "Good night, freaks."

"Good night, Madame Lulu," replied Amy who would have rather been called a proper name, even if it was one she invented, than simply "freak," but the fortune-teller walked away without looking back. The Hedges stood in the doorway of the caravan for a moment, watching Lulu disappear into the night, before looking up at the man and intro- ducing themselves a bit more properly.

"My name is Thomas," Tails said. "My sec- ond head is named Alexia, and this is Chabo the Wolf Baby."

"Grr!" growled Sonic.

"I'm Scourge," the man said. "It'll be nice to have new coworkers. Come on inside the cara- van and I'll introduce you to the others."

Still finding it awkward to walk, Tails and Amy followed Scourge inside, and Sonic fol- lowed his siblings, preferring to crawl rather than walk, because it made her seem more half

wolf. The caravan was small, but the children could see by the light of Scourge's candle that it was tidy and clean. There was a small wooden table in the center, with a set of dominoes stacked up in the center and several chairs grouped around. In one corner was a rack with clothing hung on it, including a long row of identical coats, and a large mirror so you could comb your hair and make sure you looked pre- sentable. There was a small stove for cooking meals, with a few pots and pans stacked along- side it, and a few potted plants lined up near the window so they would get enough sunlight. Tails would have liked to add a small work- bench she could use while inventing things, Amy would have been pleased to be squinting at some bookshelves, and Sonic would have preferred to see a stack of raw carrots or other foods that are pleasant to bite or a treadmill, but otherwise the caravan looked like a cozy place to live. The only thing that seemed to be missing was some- place to sleep, but as Scourge walked farther into

the room, the children saw that there were three hammocks, which are long, wide pieces of cloth used for beds, hanging from places on the walls. One hammock was empty—the Hedges supposed that this was where Scourge slept—but in another they could see a tall skinny pink hedgehog, who could have passed as a clone of Amy with curly hair squinting down at them, and in the third was a fox, who too can pass as a clone of Tails had it not been for his black hair and with a very wrinkled face who was still asleep.

"Miles!" Scourge called up to the sleeping man. "Miles, get up! We have new coworkers, and I'll need help setting up more hammocks." The man frowned and glared down at Scourge.

"I wish you hadn't woken me up," Miles said. "I was having a delightful dream that there was nothing wrong with me at all, instead of being a freak."

The Hedges took a good look at Miles as he lowered himself to the floor and were unable to see anything the least bit freakish about him, but he stared at the Hedges as if he had seen a ghost. "My word," he said. "You

two have it as bad as I do."

"Try to be polite, Miles," Scourge said. "This is Thomas and Alexia, and there on the floor is Chabo the Wolf Baby."

"Wolf Baby?" Miles repeated, shaking Tails and Amy's shared right hand. "Is he dangerous?"

"He doesn't like to be teased," Tails said.

"I don't like to be teased either," Miles said, and hung his head. "But wherever I go, I hear people whispering, 'there goes Miles, the

ambidextrous freak.'"

"Ambidextrous?" Amy said. "Doesn't that mean you are both right-handed and left- handed?"

"So you've heard of me," Miles said. "Is that why you traveled out here to the hinter- lands, so you could stare at somebody who can write his name with either his left hand or his right? And that he can write with BOTH of his tails AT the same time"

"No," Amy said. "I just know the word 'ambidextrous' from a book I read."

"I had a feeling you'd be smart," Scourge said. "After all, you have twice as many brains as most people."

"I only have one brain," Miles said sadly. "One brain, two ambidextrous arms, two ambidextrous tails and two ambidextrous legs. What a freak!"

"It's better than being a hunchback," Scourge said. "Your hands may be freaky, but you have absolutely normal shoulders."

"What good are normal shoulders," Miles said, "when they're attached to hands that are equally good at using a knife and fork?"

"Oh, Miles," the woman said, and climbed down from her hammock to give him a pat on the head. "I know it's depressing being so freak- ish, but try and look on the bright side. At least you're better off than me." She turned to the children and gave them a shy smile. "My name is Rosy," she said, "and if you're going to laugh at me, I'd prefer you do it now and get it over with."

The Hedges looked at Rosy and then

at one another. "Renuf!" Sonic said, which meant something like, "I don't see anything freakish about you either, but even if I did I wouldn't laugh at you because it wouldn't be polite."

"I bet that's some sort of wolf laugh," Rosy said, "but I don't blame Chabo for laughing at a contortionist."

"Contortionist?" Tails asked.

"Yes," Rosy sighed. "I can bend my body into all sorts of unusual positions. Look."

The Hedges watched as Rosy sighed again and launched into a contortionist routine. First she bent down so her head was between her legs, and curled up into a tiny ball on the floor. Then she pushed one hand against the ground and lifted her entire body up on just a few fingers, braiding her legs together into a spiral. Finally she flipped up in the air, balanced for a moment on her head, and twisted her arms and legs together like a mass of twine before looking up at the Hedges with a sad frown.

"You see?" Rosy said. "I'm a complete freak."

"Wow!" Sonic shrieked.

"I thought that was amazing," Tails said, "and so did Chabo."

"That's very polite of you to say so," Rosy said, "but I'm ashamed that I'm a contortionist." "But if you're ashamed of it," Amy said, "why don't you just move your body normally,

instead of doing contortions?"

"Because I'm in the House of Freaks, Alexia," Rosy said. "Nobody would pay to see me move my body normally."

"It's an interesting dilemma," Scourge said, using a fancy word for "problem" that the Hedges had learned from a law book in Justice Tikal Strauss's library. "All three of us would rather be normal people than freaks, but tomorrow morning, people will be waiting in the tent for Rosy to twist her body into strange positions, for Thomas and Alexia to eat corn, for Chabo to growl and attack the crowd, for Miles

to write his name with both hands and tails, and for me to try on one of those coats. Madame Lulu says we must always give people what they want, and they want freaks performing on a stage. Come now, it's very late at night. Miles, give me a helping hand putting up hammocks for the newcomers, and then let's all try to get some sleep."

"I might as well give you _two_ helping hands, and _two_ helping tails" Miles said glumly. "They're both equally efficient. Oh, I wish that I was either right-handed or left-handed."

"Try to cheer up," Rosy said gently. "Maybe a miracle will happen tomorrow, and we'll all get the things we wish for most."

No one in the caravan said anything more, but as Scourge and Miles prepared two hammocks for the three Hedges, the children thought about what Rosy had said. Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. Some people

say that a sunrise is a miracle, because it is some- what mysterious and often very beautiful, but other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. Some people say that a computer is a miracle, because it sometimes seems wondrous that you can communicate with somebody who is thou- sands of miles away, and other people say it is simply a manufactured device fashioned out of metal parts, electronic circuitry, and very complex chips. And some people say that sneaking out of a hotel is a miracle, particularly if the lobby is swarming with policemen, and other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morn- ing. So you might think that there are so many miracles in the world that you can scarcely count them, or that there are so few that they're scarcely worth mentioning, depending on whether you spend your mornings gazing at a beautiful sunset or lowering yourself into a back alley with a rope fashioned out of matching towels.

But there was one miracle the Hedges were thinking about as they lay in their ham- mocks and tried to sleep, and this was the sort of miracle that felt bigger than any meatball the world has ever seen. The hammocks creaked in the caravan as Tails and Amy tried to get comfortable in one set of clothing and Sonic tried to arrange Eggman's beard so that it wouldn't be too scratchy, and all three youngsters thought about a miracle so wondrous and beautiful that it made their hearts ache to think of it. The miracle, of course, was that one of their parents was alive after all, that either their father or their mother had somehow survived the fire that had destroyed their home and begun the children's unfortunate journey. To have one more Hedge alive was such an enormous and unlikely miracle that the children were almost afraid to wish for it, but they wished for it any- way. The youngsters thought of what Rosy had said—that maybe a miracle would happen, and that they would all get the thing they wished

for most—and waited for morning to come, when Madame Lulu's crystal ball might bring the miracle the Hedges were wishing for.

At last the sun rose, as it does every day, and very early in the morning. The three children had slept very little and wished very much, and now they watched the caravan slowly fill with light, and listened to Scourge, Rosy, and Miles shift in their hammocks, and wondered if Count Eggman had entered the fortune-teller's tent yet, and if he had learned anything there. And just when they could stand it no more, they heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and a loud, metallic knock on the door.

"Wake up! Wake up!" came the voice of the hook-handed man, but before I write down what he said I must tell you that there is one more similarity between a miracle and a meat- ball, and it is that they both might appear to be one thing but turn out to be another. It hap- pened to me once at a cafeteria, when it turned out there was a small camera hidden in the lunch

I received. And it happened to Tails, Amy, and Sonic now, although it was quite some time before they learned that what the hook-handed man said turned out to be something different from what they thought when they heard him outside the door of the freaks' caravan.

"Wake up!" the hook-handed man said again, and pounded on the door. "Wake up and hurry up! I'm in a very bad mood and have no time for your nonsense. It's a very busy day at the carnival. Madame Lulu and Count Eggman are running errands, I'm in charge of the House of Freaks, the crystal ball revealed that one of those blasted Hedge parents is still alive, and the gift caravan is almost out of figurines."

R

Four

" _What?"_ asked Scourge, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said the gift caravan is almost out of fig- urines," the hook-handed man said from behind the door. "But that's not your concern. People are already arriving at the carnival, so you freaks need to be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Wait a moment, sir!" Tails thought to use

his low, disguised voice just in time, as he and his sister climbed down from their hammock, still sharing a single pair of pants. Sonic was already on the floor, too astonished to remember to growl. "Did you say that one of the Hedge parents is alive?"

The door of the caravan opened a crack, and the children could see the face of the hook- handed man peering at them suspiciously.

"What do you care, freaks?" he asked. "Well," Amy said, thinking quickly, "we've

been reading about the Hedges in _The Daily Punctilio._ We're very interested in the case of those three murderous children."

"Well," the hook-handed man said, "those kids' parents were supposed to be dead, but Madame Lulu looked into her crystal ball and saw that one of them was alive. It's a long story, but it means that we're all going to be very busy. Count Eggman and Madame Lulu had to leave early this morning to run an important errand, so I'm now in charge of the House of Freaks. That

means I get to boss you around, so hurry up and get ready for the show!"

"Grr!" Sonic growled.

"Chabo's all set to perform," Tails said, "and the rest of us will be ready soon."

"You'd better be," the hook-handed man said, and began to shut the door before stopping for a moment. "That's funny," he said. "It looks like one of your scars is blurry."

"They blur as they heal," Amy said.

"Too bad," the hook-handed man said. "It makes you look less freakish." He slammed the door and the siblings could hear him walk away from the caravan.

"I feel sorry for that man," Rosy remarked, as she swung down from her hammock and curled into a contortion on the floor. "Every time he and that Count person come to visit, it makes me feel bad to look at his hooks."

"He's better off than me," Miles said, yawn- ing and stretching his ambidextrous arms. "At least one of his hooks is stronger than the other

one. My arms and legs are exactly alike."

"And mine are very bendable," Rosy said. "Well, we'd better do as the man says and get ready for the show."

"That's right," Scourge agreed, reaching into a shelf next to his hammock and pulling out a toothbrush. "Madame Lulu says that we must always give people what they want, and that man wants us ready right away."

"Here, Chabo," Tails said, looking down at his brother. "I'll help you sharpen your teeth."

"Grr!" Sonic agreed, and the two older Hedges leaned down together, and lifted Sonic up and moved into a corner so the three children could whisper to one another near the mirror, while Scourge, Rosy, and Miles performed their toilette, a phrase which here means "did the things necessary to begin their day as carnival freaks."

"What do you think?" Amy asked. "Do you think it's really possible that one of our parents is alive?"

"I don't know," Tails said. "On one hand, it's hard to believe that Madame Lulu really has a magical crystal ball. On the other hand, she always told Count Eggman where we were so he could come and find us. I don't know what to believe."

"Tent," Sonic whispered.

"I think you're right, Sonic," Amy said. "If we could sneak into the fortune-telling tent, we might be able to find out something for our- selves."

"You're whispering about me, aren't you?" Miles called out from the other end of the car- avan. "I bet you're saying, 'What a freak Miles is. Sometimes he shaves with his left hand, and sometimes he shaves with his right hand, but it doesn't matter because they're _exactly_ _the_ _same_!'" "We weren't talking about you, Miles,"

Tails said. "We were discussing the Hedge case."

"I never heard of these Hedges," Scourge said, combing his hair. "Did I hear you mention

they were murderers?"

"That's what it says in _The Daily Punctilio,_ " Amy said.

"Oh, I never read the newspaper," Miles said. "Holding it in both of my equally strong hands makes me feel like a freak."

"That's better than me," Rosy said. "I can contort myself into a position that allows me to pick up a newspaper with my tongue. Talk about freakish!"

"It's an interesting dilemma," Scourge said, grabbing one of the identical coats from the rack, "but I think that we're all equally freakish. Now, let's get out there and put on a good show!"

The Hedges followed their coworkers out of the caravan and over to the House of Freaks tent, where the hook-handed man was standing impatiently, holding something long and damp in one of his hooks.

"Get inside and put on a good show," he ordered, gesturing to a flap in the tent that

served as an entrance. "Madame Lulu said that if you don't give the audience what they want, I'm allowed to use this tagliatelle grande."

"What's a tagliatelle grande?" Rosy asked. "Tagliatelle is a type of Italian noodle," the hook-handed man explained, uncoiling the long and damp object, "and grande means 'big' in Italian. This is a big noodle that a carnival worker cooked up for me this morning." Eggman's comrade waved the big noodle over his head, and the Hedges and their coworkers heard a limp swishing sound as it moved slowly through the air, as if a large earthworm were crawling nearby. "If you don't do what I say," the hook- handed man continued, "I get to hit you with the tagliatelle grande _,_ which I've heard is an

unpleasant and somewhat sticky experience." "Don't worry, sir," Scourge said. "We're professionals."

"I'm glad to hear it," the hook-handed man sneered, and followed them all into the House of Freaks. Inside, the tent looked even bigger,

particularly because there wasn't very much to see in such a large space. There was a wooden stage with a few folding chairs placed on it, and a banner overhead, which read HOUSE OF FREAKS in large, sloppy letters. There was a small stand where one of the white-faced women was selling cold beverages. And there were seven or eight people milling around, waiting for the show to begin. Madame Lulu had mentioned that business had been slow at Caligari Carnival, but the siblings had still ex- pected a few more people to show up to see the carnival freaks. As the children and their co- workers approached the stage, the hook- handed man began speaking to the small group of people as if they were a vast crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, adolescents of both genders," he announced. "Hurry up and buy your delicious cold bever- ages, because the House of Freaks show is about to begin!"

"Look at all those freaks!" giggled one

member of the audience, a middle-aged Zerbra with several large pimples on his chin. "There's a man with hooks instead of hands!"

"I'm not one of the freaks," the hook-handed man growled. "I work here at the carnival!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man said. "But if you don't mind my saying so, if you purchased a pair of realistic hands no one would make that mistake."

"It's not polite to comment on other people's appearances," the hook-handed man said sternly. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, gaze with horror on Scourge, the hunchback! Instead of a regular back, he has a big hump that makes him look very freakish!"

"That's true," said the pimpled Zebra, who seemed willing to giggle at one person or another. "What a freak!"

The hook-handed man waved his large noodle in the air as a limp reminder to the Hedges and their coworkers. "Scourge!" he barked. "Put on your coat!"

As the audience tittered, Scourge walked to the front of the stage and tried to put on the coat he was holding. Usually, if someone has a body with an unusual shape, they will hire a tailor to alter their clothing so it will fit comfortably and attractively, but as Scourge struggled with the coat, it was clear that no such tailor had been hired. Scourge's hump wrinkled the back of the coat, and then stretched it, and then finally ripped it as he did up the buttons, so that within moments the coat was just a few pieces of tattered cloth. Blushing, Scourge retreated to the back of the stage and sat on a folding chair as the members of the tiny audience howled with laughter.

"Isn't that hilarious?" the hook-handed man said. "He can't even put on a coat! What a freak- ish person! But wait, ladies and gentlemen— there's more!" Eggman's henchman shook the tagliatelle grande again while reaching into his pocket with his other hook. Smiling wickedly, he withdrew an ear of corn and held it up for the audience to see. "This is a simple ear of corn,"

he announced. "It's something that any normal person can eat. But here at Caligari Carnival, we don't have a House of Normal People. We have a House of Freaks, with a brand-new freak that will turn this ear of corn into a hilarious mess!"

Tails and Amy sighed, and walked to the center of the stage, and I do not think that I have to describe this tiresome show any longer. You can undoubtedly guess that the two eldest Hedges were forced to eat another ear of corn while a small group of people laughed at them, and that Rosy was forced to twist her body into unusual shapes and positions, and that Miles had to write his name with both his left and right hands and tails, and that finally poor Sonic was forced to growl and charge at the audience, although he was not a ferocious person by nature and would have preferred to greet them politely. And you can imagine how the crowd reacted as the hook- handed man announced each person and forced them to do these things. The seven or eight people laughed, and shouted cruel names, and

made terrible and tasteless jokes, and one woman even threw her cold beverage, paper cup and all, at Miles, as if someone who was both right-handed and left-handed and left-tailed and right-tailed somehow deserved to have wet and sticky stains on his shirt. But what you may not be able to imagine, unless you have had a similar experience yourself, is how humiliating it was to participate in such a show. You might think that being humiliated, like riding a bicycle or decoding a secret message, would get easier after you had done it a few times, but the Hedges had been laughed at more than a few times and it didn't make their experience in the House of Freaks easier at all. Tails remembered when a girl named Sally Spats had laughed at him and called him names, when the children were enrolled in Prufrock Preparatory School, but it still hurt his feelings when the hook-handed man announced him as something hilarious. Amy remembered when Eudora Squalor had insulted her at 667 Dark Avenue, but she still blushed when the

audience pointed and giggled every time the ear of corn slipped out of her hands. And Sonic remembered all of the times Count Eggman had laughed at all three Hedges and their mis- fortune, but she still felt embarrassed and a little sick when the people called her "wolf freak" as he followed the other performers out of the tent when the show was over. The Hedge orphans even knew that they weren't really a two-headed person and a wolf baby, but as they sat with their coworkers in the freaks' caravan afterward, they felt so humiliated that it was as if they were as freakish as everyone thought.

"I don't like this place," Tails said to Miles and Rosy, sharing a chair with her brother at the caravan's table, while Scourge made hot chocolate at the stove. He was so upset that he almost forgot to speak in a low voice. "I don't like being stared at, and I don't like being laughed at. If people think it's funny when someone drops an ear of corn, they should stay home and drop it themselves."

"Kiwoon!" Sonic agreed, forgetting to growl. He meant something along the lines of, "I thought I was going to cry when all those people were calling me 'freak,'" but luckily only her siblings understood her, so she didn't give away her disguise.

"Don't worry," Amy said to his sisters. "I don't think we'll stay here very long. The fortune-telling tent is closed today because Count Eggman and Madame Lulu are running that important errand." The middle Hedge did not need to add that it would be a good time to sneak into the tent and find out if Lulu's crystal ball really held the answers they were seeking.

"Why do you care if Lulu's tent is closed?" Rosy asked. "You're a freak, not a fortune- teller."

"And why don't you want to stay here?" Miles asked. "Caligari Carnival hasn't been very popular lately, but there's nowhere else for a freak to go."

"Of course there is," Tails said. "Lots of people are ambidextrous, Miles. There are ambidextrous florists, and ambidextrous air- traffic controllers, and all sorts of things. We ourselves are ambidextous"

"You really think so?" Miles asked. "But I am not surprised to hear that you are like me as you have two heads."

"Of course I do," Tails said. "And it's the same with contortionists and hunchbacks. All of us could find some other type of job where people didn't think we were freakish at all."

"I'm not sure that's true," Scourge called over from the stove. "I think that a two-headed person is going to be considered pretty freakish no matter where they go."

"And it's probably the same with an ambi- dextrous person," Miles said with a sigh.

"Let's try to forget our troubles and play cards," Scourge said, bringing over a tray with six steaming mugs of hot chocolate. "I thought both of your heads might want to drink separately," he explained with a smile, "particularly because this hot chocolate is a little bit unusual. Chabo the Wolf Baby added

a little bit of cinnamon."

"Chabo added it?" Amy asked with sur- prise, as Sonic growled modestly.

"Yes," Scourge said. "At first I thought it was some freaky wolf recipe, but it's actually quite tasty."

"That was a clever idea, Chabo," Amy said, and gave her brother a squinty smile. It seemed only a little while ago that the youngest Hedge couldn't walk, and was small enough to fit inside a birdcage, and now she was developing her own interests, and was big enough to seem half wolf.

"You should be very proud of yourself," Scourge agreed. "If you weren't a freak, Chabo, you could grow up to be an excellent chef."

"She could be a chef anyway," Tails said. "Alexia, would you mind if we stepped outside to enjoy our hot chocolate?"

"That's a good idea," Amy said quickly. "I've always considered hot chocolate to be an outdoor beverage, and I'd like to take a peek in the gift caravan."

"Grr," Sonic growled, but his siblings knew she meant "I'll come with you," and she crawled over to where Tails and Amy were awkwardly rising from their chair.

"Don't be too long," Rosy said. "We're not really supposed to wander around the carnival."

"We'll just drink our hot chocolate and come right back," Amy promised.

"I hope you don't get in trouble," Miles said. "I hate to think of the tagliatelle grande hitting both of your heads."

The Hedges were just about to point out that a blow from the tagliatelle grande probably wouldn't hurt one bit, when they heard a noise which was far more fearsome than a large noodle waving in the air. Even from inside the caravan, the children could hear a loud, creaky noise they recognized from their long trip into the hinter- lands.

"That sounds like that gentleman friend of Madame Lulu's," Scourge said. "That's the sound of his car."

"There's another sound, too," Rosy said. "Listen."

The children listened and heard that the contortionist had spoken the truth. Accompany- ing the roar of the engine was another roar, one that sounded deeper and angrier than any auto- mobile. The Hedges knew that you cannot judge something by its sound any more than you can judge a person by the way they look, but this roar was so loud and fierce that the youngsters could not imagine that it brought good news.

Here I must interrupt the story I am writ- ing, and tell you another story in order to make an important point. This second story is fic- tional, a word which here means "somebody made it up one day," as opposed to the story of the Hedge orphans, which somebody merely wrote down, usually at night. It is called "The Story of Queen Debbie and Her Boyfriend, Tony," and it goes something like this:

The Story of Queen Debbie and Her Boyfriend, Tony

Once upon a time, there lived a fictional queen named Queen Debbie, who ruled over the land

where this story takes place, which is made up. This fictional land had lollipop trees growing everywhere, and singing mice that did all of the chores, and there were fierce and fictional lions who guarded the palace against fictional enemies. Queen Debbie had a boyfriend named Tony, who lived in the neighboring fictional kingdom. Because they lived so far away, Debbie and Tony couldn't see each other that often, but occasion- ally they would go out to dinner and a movie, or do other fictional things together.

Tony's birthday arrived, and Queen Debbie had some royal business and couldn't travel to see him, but she sent him a nice card and a myna bird

in a shiny cage. The proper thing to do if you receive a present, of course, is to write a thank- you note, but Tony was not a particularly proper person, and called Debbie to complain.

"Debbie, this is Tony," Tony said. "I got the birthday present you sent me, and I don't like it at all."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Queen Debbie said, plucking a lollipop off a nearby tree. "I picked out the myna bird especially for you. What sort of present would you prefer?"

"I think you should give me a bunch of valu- able diamonds," said Tony, who was as greedy as he was fictional.

"Diamonds?" Queen Debbie said. "But myna birds can cheer you up when you are sad. You can teach them to sit on your hand, and sometimes they even talk."

"I want diamonds," Tony said.

"But diamonds are so valuable," Queen Debbie

said. "If I send you diamonds in the mail, they'll probably get stolen on their way to you, and then you won't have any birthday present at all."

"I want diamonds," whined Tony, who was really becoming quite tiresome.

"I know what I'll do," Queen Debbie said with a faint smile. "I'll feed my diamonds to the royal lions, and then send the lions to your kingdom. No one would dare attack a bunch of fierce lions, so the diamonds are sure to arrive safely."

"Hurry up," Tony said. "It's supposed to be my special day."

It was easy for Queen Debbie to hurry up, because the singing mice who lived in her palace did all of the necessary chores, so it only took a few minutes for her to feed a bunch of diamonds to her lions, wrapping the jewels in tuna fish first so the lions would agree to eat them. Then she instructed the lions to travel to the neighboring kingdom to deliver the present.

Tony waited impatiently outside his house for the rest of the day, eating all of the ice cream and cake and teasing his myna bird, and finally, at just about sunset, he saw the lions approach- ing on the horizon and ran over to collect his present.

"Give me those diamonds, you stupid lions!"

Tony cried,

and there is no need to tell you the rest of this story, which has the rather obvious moral "Never look a gift lion in the mouth." The point is that there are times where the arrival of a bunch of lions is good news, particularly in a fictional story where the lions are not real and so probably will not hurt you. There are some cases, as in the case of Queen Debbie and her boyfriend, Tony, where the arrival of lions means that the story is about to get much better.

But I am sad to say that the case of the Hedge orphans is not one of those times. The story of the Hedges does not take place

in a fictional land where lollipops grow on trees and singing mice do all of the chores. The story of the Hedges takes place in a very real world, where some people are laughed at just because they have something wrong with them, and where children can find themselves all alone in the world, struggling to understand the sinister mystery that surrounds them, and in this real world the arrival of lions means that the story is about to get much worse, and if you do not have a stomach for such a story—any more than lions have a stomach for diamonds not coated in tuna fish—it would be best if you turned around right now and ran the other way, as the Hedges wished they could as they exited the caravan and saw what Count Eggman had brought with him when he returned from his errand.

Count Eggman drove his black automobile between the rows of caravans, nearly running over several visitors to the carnival, stopped right at the tent for the House of Freaks, and

turned off the engine, which ended the creaky roar the children had recognized. But the other, angrier roar continued as Eggman got out of the car, followed by Madame Lulu, and pointed with a flourish to a trailer that was attached to the rear of the automobile. The trailer was really more of a metal cage on wheels, and through the bars of the cage the Hedges could see what the villain was pointing at.

The trailer was filled with lions, packed in so tightly that the children couldn't tell just how many there were. The lions were unhappy to be traveling in such tight quarters, and were show- ing their unhappiness by scratching at the cage with their claws, snapping at one another with their long teeth, and roaring as loudly and as fiercely as they could. Some of Count Eggman's henchmen gathered around, along with several visitors to the carnival, to see what was going on, and Eggman tried to say something to them, but couldn't be heard over the lions' roars. Frown- ing, the villain removed a whip from his pocket

and whipped at the lions through the trailer bars. Like people, animals will become fright- ened and likely do whatever you say if you whip them enough, and the lions finally quieted down so Eggman could make his announcement.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "boys and girls, freaks and normal people, Caligari Carnival is proud to announce the arrival of these fierce lions, who will be used in a new attraction."

"That's good news," said someone in the crowd, "because the souvenirs in the gift cara- van are pretty lousy."

"It _is_ good news," Count Eggman agreed with a snarl, and turned to face the Hedges. His eyes were shining very brightly, and the siblings shivered in their disguises as he looked at the children and then at the gathering crowd. "Things are about to get much better around here," he said, and the Hedge orphans knew that this was as fictional as anything they could imagine.

 _R_

Five

 _If_ you have ever experienced something that feels strangely familiar, as if the exact same thing has happened to you before, then you are experiencing what the French call "déjà vu." Like most French expressions—"ennui," which is a fancy term for severe boredom, or "la petite mort," which describes a feeling that

part of you has died—"déjà vu" refers to something that is usually not very pleasant, and it was not pleasant for the Hedge orphans to stand outside

the freaks' caravan lis- tening to Count Eggman

and experiencing the queasy feeling of déjà vu. "These lions are going to be the most exciting thing at Caligari Carnival!" Eggman announced, as more and more people drew near to see what all the fuss was about. "As you all know, unless you are incredibly dim-witted, a stubborn mule will move in the proper direction if there is a carrot in front of it, and a stick behind it. It will move toward the carrot, because it wants the reward of food, and away from the stick, because it does not want the punishment of pain. And

these lions will do the same."

"What's going on?" Scourge asked the chil- dren, walking out of the caravan with Rosy and Miles close behind.

"Déjà vu," Sonic said bitterly. Even the youngest Hedge recognized Count Eggman's cruel speech about the stubborn mule from when the three children had been living in Eggman's house. Back then, the villain had talked about a stubborn mule in order to force Amy to marry him, a plot that thankfully had been

foiled at the last minute, but now he was using the very same words to cook up another scheme, and it gave the siblings a queasy feeling to watch it happen.

"These lions," Count Eggman said, "will do as I say, because they want to avoid the punish- ment of this whip!" With a flourish, he flicked his whip at the lions again, who cowered behind the bars, and some of the visitors to the carni- val applauded.

"But if the whip is the stick," asked the bald man, "what is the carrot?"

"The carrot?" Eggman repeated, and laughed in a particularly nasty way. "The reward for the lions who obey me will be a delicious meal. Lions are carnivorous, which means they eat meat, and here at Caligari Carnival they'll have the finest meat we have to offer." He turned and pointed his whip at the entrance to the freaks' caravan, where the Hedges were standing with their coworkers. "The freaks you see here aren't normal people, and so they lead

depressing lives," he announced. "They'll be happy to exhibit themselves in the name of entertainment."

"Of course we will," Rosy said. "We do it every day."

"Then you won't mind being the most important part of the lion show," Eggman replied. "We're not going to feed these lions regular meals, so they'll be very, very hungry by the time the show begins. Each day, instead of a show at the House of Freaks, we'll randomly choose one freak and watch the lions devour them."

Everyone cheered again, except for Scourge, Rosy, Miles, and the three siblings, who all stood in horrified silence.

"That will be exciting!" said the man with pimples on his face. "Just think—violence and sloppy eating combined in one fabulous show!" "I couldn't agree more!" said a woman who was standing nearby. "It was hilarious watching that two-headed freak eat, but it'll be even more

hilarious watching the two-headed freak get eaten!"

"I'd prefer to watch the hunchback get eaten," said someone else in the crowd. "He's so funny! He doesn't even have a regular back!" "The fun starts tomorrow afternoon!" Count

Eggman cried. "See you then!"

"I can't wait," said the woman, as the crowd began to disperse, a word which here means "walk off to purchase souvenirs or leave the car- nival." "I'm going to tell all my friends."

"I'm going to call that reporter at _The Daily Punctilio,_ " the zebra with pimples said, heading toward the phone booth. "This carnival is about to get very popular, and maybe they'll write an article about it."

"You were right, boss," said the hook- handed man. "Things are about to get much better here."

"Of course he was right, please," Madame Lulu said. "He is brilliant man, and brave man, and generous man. He is brilliant for thinking

of the lion show, please. He is brave man for hitting lions with whip, please. And he is gen- erous man for giving lions to Lulu."

"He gave those lions to you?" asked a sinis- ter voice. "They were presents?"

Now that most of the carnival visitors had departed, the Hedges could see Eudora Squalor step forward from the doorway of another caravan and walk toward Count Eggman and Madame Lulu. As she passed the lions' trailer, she ran her enormous fingernails along the bars, and the lions whimpered in fear. "So you gave Madame Lulu some lions," she said. "What did you get me?"

Count Eggman scratched his head with one scraggly hand, and looked a little embarrassed. "Nothing," he admitted. "But you can share my whip, if you'd like."

Madame Lulu leaned over and gave Eggman a kiss on the cheek. "He gave lions to me, please, because I did such wonderful fortune-telling."

"You should have seen it, Eudora," Eggman said.

"Lulu and I entered the fortune-telling tent and turned out all the lights, and the crystal ball began to hum its magical hum. Then, magical lightning crackled above us, and Madame Lulu told me to concentrate as hard as I could. While I closed my eyes, she gazed into her crystal ball and told me that one of the Hedge parents is alive and hiding in the Mortmain Mountains. As a reward, I gave her these lions."

"So Madame Lulu needs a carrot, too, eh?" the hook-handed man said with a laugh.

"First thing tomorrow morning," Eggman continued, "Madame Lulu will consult her crystal ball again, and tell me where the Hedges are."

Eudora glared at Lulu. "And what sort of gift will you give then, Eggman?"

"Be reasonable, my dear," Count Eggman said to his girlfriend. "The lions will make Caligari Carnival much more popular, so Madame Lulu can devote her time to fortune-telling and give us the information we need to finally steal the

Hedge fortune."

"I hate to criticize," Scourge said hesitantly, "but is there any way we can make the carnival more popular without feeding us to the lions? I must confess that I'm a little nervous about that part."

"You heard the crowd when I told them about the new attraction," Count Eggman said. "They couldn't wait to see the lions devour you, and all of us need to do our part to give people what they want. Your part is to return to the freaks' caravan until tomorrow. And the rest of us will do our part and start digging the pit."

"Pit?" one of the white-faced women asked. "What do we need a pit for?"

"To keep the lions in," Eggman replied, "so they only eat whichever freak jumps down there. Let's dig it over by the roller coaster."

"Good idea, boss," the bald man said. "There are shovels in tool caravan," Lulu

said. "I will show you, please."

"I'm not going to dig a pit," Eudora announced

as the others walked away. "I might break a nail. Besides, I need to talk to Count Eggman— _alone._ "

"Oh, all right," Count Eggman said. "Let's go in the guest caravan where we won't be disturbed." Eggman and Eudora walked off in one direction, and Madame Lulu led the henchmen in the other, leaving the three children alone with their

coworkers.

"Well, we'd better go inside," Rosy said. "Maybe we can think of a way not to get eaten." "Oh, let's not think about those fearsome creatures," Scourge said with a shudder. "Let's

play another game of cards instead."

"Chabo, my other head, and I will be along

in a moment," Tails said. "We want to finish our hot chocolate."

"You might as well enjoy it," Miles said glumly, following Scourge and Rosy back into the freaks' caravan. "It might turn out to be the last hot chocolate you ever drink."

Miles shut the door with both hands, and the Hedges stepped farther away from the

caravan so they could talk without being over- heard.

"Adding cinnamon to hot chocolate is a terrific idea, Sonic," Tails said, "but I'm having trouble enjoying it."

"Ificat," Sonic said, which meant "Me too." "Count Eggman's latest scheme leaves a bad taste in my mouth," Amy said, "and I don't

think cinnamon will help."

"We have to get into that fortune-telling tent," Tails said, "and this may be our only chance."

"Do you think it's really true?" Amy asked. "Do you think Madame Lulu really saw some- thing in her crystal ball?"

"I don't know," Tails said, "but I do know from my studies of electricity that lightning can't appear inside a tent. Something mysteri- ous is going on, and we need to find out what it is."

"Chow!" Sonic said, which meant "Before we're thrown to the lions!"

"But do you think it's real?" Amy asked. "I don't know," Tails said testily, a word

which here means "in her regular voice, forget- ting her disguise because she was becoming very frustrated and upset." "I don't know if Madame Lulu is a fortune-teller. I don't know how Count Eggman always knows where we are. I don't know where the Snicket file is, or why someone else had Eggman's tattoo, or what V.F.D. stands for, or why there's a secret passageway that leads to our house, or—"

"If our parents are alive?" Amy interrupted. "Do you know if one of our parents is really alive?"

The middle Hedge's voice quivered, and his sisters turned to look at him—a feat that was difficult for Tails, who was still sharing his shirt—and saw that he was crying. Tails leaned so that her head was against his while Sonic put her mug down and crawled closer to hug his knees, and the three Hedges stood quietly together for a few moments.

Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it. When I am able, I go out walking on Briny Beach very early in the morning, which is the best time to find materials important to the Hedge case, and the ocean is so peaceful that I feel peaceful, too, as if I am no longer grieving for the woman I love and will never see again. But then, when I am cold and duck into a teashop where the owner is expecting me, I have only to reach for the sugar bowl before my grief returns, and I find myself crying so loudly that other customers ask me if I could possibly lower my sobs. With the Hedge orphans, it was as if their grief were a very heavy object that they each took turns carrying so that they would not all be crying at once, but sometimes the object was too heavy for one of them to move without weeping, so Tails and Sonic stood next to Amy, reminding him that this was

something they could all carry together until at last they found a safe place to lay it down.

"I'm sorry I was testy, Amy," Tails said. "There's just so much we don't know that it's hard to think about all at once."

"Chithvee," Sonic said, which meant "But I can't help thinking about our parents."

"Me neither," Tails admitted. "I keep won- dering if one of them survived the fire."

"But if they did," Amy said, "why would they be hiding in a faraway place? Why aren't they trying to find us?"

"Maybe they are," Tails said quietly. "Maybe they're searching for us everywhere they can think of, but they can't find us, because we've been hiding and disguising ourselves for so long."

"But why doesn't our mother or father con- tact Mr. Silver Poe?" Amy said.

"We've tried to contact him," Tails pointed out, "but he doesn't answer our telegrams, and we can't seem to reach him by phone. If one of

our parents has survived the fire, maybe they're having the same wretched luck."

"Galfuskin," Sonic pointed out. By "Gal- fuskin" he meant something like, "This is all guesswork—let's go to the fortune-telling tent and see if we can find out anything for sure, and we'd better do it soon before the others get back."

"You're right, Sonic," Tails said, and put his mug down next to Sonic's. Amy put down her mug, and all three Hedges took dis- guised steps away from their hot chocolate. Tails and Amy walked awkwardly in their shared pants, leaning against one another with every step, and Sonic followed alongside, still crawling so that he would look half wolf if anyone watched them as they made their way through the carnival toward the fortune-telling tent. But no one was watching the Hedge orphans. The visitors to the carnival had gone home to tell their friends about the lion show happening the next day. The children's coworkers were in

the freaks' caravan bemoaning their fate, a word which here means "playing cards, rather than trying to think of a way out of their predica- ment." Madame Lulu and Eggman's assistants were digging the pit, over by the roller coaster still covered in ivy. Count Eggman and Eudora Squalor were bickering in the guest caravan, which was located at the far end of the carnival where I had stayed with my late brother so many years ago, and the rest of Madame Lulu's employees were closing down the carnival and hoping that someday they might work in a less miserable place. So nobody was watching as the children approached the tent next to Lulu's caravan, and stopped for a minute at the flap that led inside. The fortune-telling tent no longer stands at Caligari Carnival, or anywhere else for that matter. Anyone wandering through the blackened and desolate hinterlands would scarcely be able to tell that there had been any tents at all. But even if everything looked exactly the same as when the Hedge orphans stayed there, it is

unlikely that a traveler would understand what the tent's decoration meant, as nowadays there are so few living experts on such subjects, and the experts who are alive are all in terrible circumstances, or, in my case, on their way to terrible circumstances in the hopes of making them less terrible. But the Hedge orphans— who, as you will recall, had only arrived at the carnival the night before, and so had never seen the fortunetelling tent in daylight until this very moment—could see how the tent was dec- orated, which is why they stopped to stare at it. At first glance, the painting on the fortune- telling tent seemed to depict an eye, like the decoration on Madame Lulu's caravan and the tattoo on Count Eggman's ankle. The three children had seen similar eyes wherever they went, from a building in the shape of an eye when they were working in a lumbermill, to an eye on Eudora Squalor's purse when they were hiding in a hospital, to a huge swarm of eyes that surrounded them in their most frightening

nightmares, and although the siblings never understood quite what these eyes meant, they were so weary of gazing at them that they would never pause to look at one again. But there are many things in life that become different if you take a long look at them, and as the children paused in front of the fortune-telling tent, the painting seemed to change before their very eyes, until it did not seem like a painting at all, but an insignia.

An insignia is sort of a mark that usually stands for an organization or a business, and the mark can be of any sort whatsoever. Sometimes an insignia can be a simple shape, such as a wavy line to indicate an organization concerned with rivers or oceans, or a square to indicate an organization concerned with geometry or sugar cubes. Sometimes an insignia can be a small picture of something, such as a torch, to indicate an organization that is flammable, or the three- eyed girl outside the House of Freaks, indicating that people who were unusual in some way

were on display inside. And sometimes an insignia can be part of the name of the organization, such as the first few letters, or its initials. The Hedges, of course, were not involved in any sort of business, aside from disguising themselves as carnival freaks, and as far as they knew they were not members of an organization of any kind, and they had never even been to the hinterlands until Count Eggman's car had taken them down Rarely Ridden Road, but the three children took a long look at the insignia on Madame Lulu's tent, because they knew that it was important to them somehow, as if whoever had painted the insignia knew they would come here, and wanted to bring them inside.

"Do you think . . ." Amy said, his voice trailing off as he squinted at the tent.

"I didn't see it at first glance," Tails said, "but as I took a long look . . ."

"Volu . . ." Sonic said, and without another word the three children peered into the entrance, and, seeing no sign of anyone inside,

took a few steps forward. If someone had been watching the youngsters, they would have seen these few hesitant steps as they entered the fortune-teller's tent as quietly as they could. But there was no one watching. There was no one to see the flap of cloth as it closed quietly behind them, making the whole tent shiver ever so slightly, and there was no one to notice that the painting shivered, too. There was no one watching the Hedge orphans as they drew closer to finding the answers to their questions, or solving the mysteries of their lives. There was no one to take a long look at the painting on the tent to see that it was not an image of an eye, as it appeared to be at first glance, but an insignia, standing for an organization the children knew only as V.F.D.

R

Six

 _There_ are many difficult things in this world to hide, but a secret is not one of them. It is difficult to hide an airplane, for instance, because you generally need to find a deep hole or an enormous haystack, and sneak the airplane inside in the middle of the night, but it is easy to hide a secret about an airplane, because you can merely write it on a tiny piece of paper and tape it to

the bottom of your mattress any time you are at home. It is difficult to hide a symphony orchestra, because you usually need to rent a sound- proof room and borrow as many sleeping bags as you can find, but it is easy to hide a secret about a symphony orchestra, because you can merely whisper it into the ear of a trustworthy friend or music critic. And it is difficult to hide yourself, because you sometimes need to stuff yourself into the trunk of an automobile, or concoct a disguise out of whatever you can find, but it is easy to hide a secret about yourself, because you can merely type it into a book and hope it falls into the right hands. My dear sister, if you are reading this, I am still alive, and heading north to try and find you.

Had the Hedge orphans been looking for an airplane as they stepped inside Madame Lulu's fortune-telling tent, they would have known to look for the tip of a wing, sticking out from under an enormous black tablecloth deco- rated with shiny silver stars, which hung over a

table in the center of the tent. Had they been looking for a symphony orchestra, they would have known to listen for the sound of someone coughing or bumping up against an oboe as they hid in the corners of the tent, which were cov- ered in heavy curtains. But the children were not looking for methods of air travel or professional musicians. They were looking for secrets, and the tent was so big that they scarcely knew where to begin looking. Was there news of the Hedge parents hidden in the cupboard that stood near the entrance? Could there be information about the Snicket file stuffed into the large trunk that stood in one of the corners? And was it possible the children could find out the meaning of V.F.D. by gazing into the crystal ball placed in the cen- ter of the table? Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked around the tent, and then at one another, and it seemed that the secrets concerning them could be hidden just about anywhere.

"Where do you think we should look?" Tails asked.

"I don't know," Amy replied, squinting all around him. "I'm not even sure what to look for." "Well, maybe we should look for answers the way Count Eggman did," Tails said. "He told the

whole story of his fortune-telling experience." "I remember," Amy said. "First he entered

Madame Lulu's tent. We've done that. Then, he said they turned out all the lights."

The Hedges looked up, and noticed for the first time that the ceiling of the tent was decorated with small lights in the shape of stars, matching the stars on the tablecloth.

"Switch!" Sonic said, pointing to a pair of switches attached to one of the tent poles.

"Good work, Sonic," Tails said. "Here, Amy, walk with me so I can get a look at those switches."

The two older Hedges walked freakishly over to the pole, but when they reached the switches Tails frowned and shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked.

"I wish I had a ribbon," Tails said, "to tie

up my hair. It's hard to think seriously with my powdery hair getting in my eyes. But my hair ribbon is somewhere at Heimlich. . . ."

Her voice trailed off, and Amy saw that she had reached her hand into the pocket of Count Eggman's pants and was drawing out a ribbon that looked just like the one she usually wore.

"Yerz," Sonic said.

"It _is_ mine," Tails said, looking at it closely. "Count Eggman must have kept it when he was preparing me for surgery, and left it in his pocket."

"I'm glad you got it back," Amy said, with a slight shudder. "I don't like to think about Eggman getting his filthy hands on our possessions. Do you need some help tying your hair up? It might be difficult using only one hand, and I don't think you should take your other one out from under the shirt. We don't want to mess up our disguise." "I think I can manage it with one hand," Tails said. "Ah, there we go. I feel less like a freak and more like Tails Hedge with

my bangs up like this. Now, let's see. Both these switches are attached to wires that run up to the top of the tent. One of them obviously controls the lights, but what does the other one do?"

The Hedges looked up again, and saw something else attached to the ceiling of the tent. In between the stars was a small, round mirror, hanging from a piece of metal, which held it at an odd angle. Attached to the metal was a long strip of rubber, which led to a large knot of wires and gears, which in turn was attached to some more mirrors arranged in a sort of wheel.

"What?" Sonic asked.

"I don't know," Amy said. "It sure doesn't look like anything I've read about."

"It's an invention of some sort," Tails said, studying it carefully. he began to point to dif- ferent parts of the strange device, but it was as if she were talking to himself instead of his sib- lings. "That piece of rubber looks like a fan belt, which transmits torque from an automotive

engine in order to help cool the radiator. But why would you want to—oh, I see. It moves those other mirrors around, which—but how would—wait a minute. Amy, see that small hole in the upper corner of the tent?"

"Not without my glasses," Amy said. "Well, there's a small rip up there," Tails

said. "What direction are we facing, if we face that small hole?"

"Let me think for a moment," Amy said. "Last night, the sun was setting as we got out of the car."

"Yirat," Sonic said, which meant "I remem- ber—the famous hinterlands sunset."

"And the car is over there," Amy said, turn- ing around and dragging his older sister with them. "So that way is west, and the rip in the tent faces east."

"East," Tails said with a smile, "the direc- tion of the sunrise."

"That's right," Amy said, "but what does that have to do with anything?"

Tails said nothing, just stood and smiled at his siblings, and Amy and Sonic smiled back. Even with the fake scars penciled on his face, Tails was smiling in a way the other Hedges recognized at once. It was the sort of smile that appeared when Tails had figured out a difficult problem, usually having to do with an invention of some sort. he had smiled this way when the siblings were in jail, and he figured out how a pitcher of water could help break them out. he had smiled this way when she had looked over some evidence she had found in a suitcase, which could convince Mr. Silver Poe that their Uncle Knuckles had been murdered. And she was smiling this way now, as she looked up at the strange device on the ceiling, and then back down at the two switches on the wall.

"Watch this," she said, and flicked the first switch. Immediately, the gears began to spin, and the long strip of rubber began to move, and the wheel of mirrors became a whirring circle.

"But what does it do?" Amy said.

"Listen," Tails said, and the children could hear a low, buzzing hum coming from the machine. "That's the hum Count Eggman was talking about. He thought it was coming from the crystal ball, but it was coming from this invention."

"I thought a magical hum sounded fishy," Amy said.

"Legror?" Sonic asked, which meant "But what about the lightning?"

"You see how that larger mirror is angled?" Tails said. "It's pointed so that it reflects any light that comes out of the small hole in the tent."

"But there isn't any light coming from it," Amy said.

"Not now," Tails said, "because the hole is facing east, and it's late in the afternoon. But in the morning, when Madame Lulu does her fortune-telling, the sun is rising, and the light of the sunrise would shine right on that mirror. And that mirror would reflect it onto the

other mirrors, put into motion by the torquated belt—"

"Wait," Amy said. "I don't understand." "That's O.K.," Tails said. "Count Eggman

doesn't understand either. When he walks into the tent in the morning, Madame Lulu turns this invention on and the room is filled with flickering lights. Remember when I used the refraction of light to make a signaling device at Lake Lachrymose? It's the same thing, but Lulu tells him that it's magical lightning."

"But wouldn't Eggman look up and see that it wasn't magical lightning?"

"Not if the lights were off," Tails said, flicking the other switch, and above them the stars went out. The cloth of the tent was so thick that no light from outside shone in, and the Hedges found themselves in utter darkness. It reminded the children of when they were climb- ing down the elevator shaft of 667 Dark Avenue, except that had been silent, and here they were surrounded by the sound of the machine's hum.

"Eerie," Sonic said.

"It _is_ spooky," Amy agreed. "No wonder Eggman thought it was a magical hum."

"Imagine how it would feel if the room were flickering with lightning," Tails said. "That's the sort of trickery that makes people believe in fortune-telling."

"So Madame Lulu is a fake," Amy said.

Tails flicked both switches again, and the lights went on as the invention went off. "She's a fake, all right," Tails said. "I bet that crystal ball is just plain glass. She tricks Count Eggman into thinking she's a fortune-teller, so he'll buy her things like lions and new turbans."

"Chesro?" Sonic asked, and looked up at his siblings. By "Chesro?" Sonic meant something along the lines of, "But if she's a fake, how did she know that one of our parents was alive?" but his siblings were almost afraid to answer her. "She didn't, Sonic," Tails said quietly. "Madame Lulu's information is as fake as her

magic lightning."

Sonic made a small, quiet sound that her siblings could scarcely hear behind his beard, and hugged Tails and Amy's legs while her little body shivered with sadness. Suddenly, it was Sonic's turn to bear the burden of Hedge grief, but he did not bear it for long, because Amy thought of something that made the Hedges collect themselves.

"Wait a minute," Amy said. "Madame Lulu may be a fake, but her information might be real. After all, she always told Count Eggman where we were staying, and she was right about that." "That's true," Tails said. "I forgot about

that."

"After all," Amy said, reaching with difficulty into her pocket. "We first thought that one of our parents might be alive after we read this." She unfolded a piece of paper that his sisters recognized as the thirteenth page of the Snicket file. There was a photograph, stapled to the page, which showed the Hedge parents, standing next to one man the Hedges

had met briefly at the Village of Fowl Devotees, and one man the children did not recognize, and below the photograph was a sentence Amy had read so many times that he did not need his glasses to read it again. "'Because of the evi- dence discussed on page nine, experts now sus- pect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown,'" he recited. "Maybe Madame Lulu knows about this."

"But how?" Tails asked.

"Well, let's see," Amy said. "Count Eggman said that after the appearance of magical light- ning, Madame Lulu told him to close his eyes so she could concentrate."

"There!" Sonic said, pointing to the table with the crystal ball.

"No, Sonic," Tails said. "The crystal ball couldn't tell her. It's not magical, remember?"

"There!" Sonic insisted, and walked over to the table. Tails and Amy followed her, walking awkwardly, and saw what he was

pointing at. Sticking out from under the table- cloth was a tiny speck of white. Kneeling down in their shared pants, the older Hedges could see it was the very edge of a piece of paper.

"Good thing you're closer to the ground than we are, Sonic," said Amy. "We never would have noticed that."

"But what is it?" Tails asked, sliding it out from under the tablecloth.

Amy reached into her pocket again, re- moved her glasses, and put them on. "Now I feel less like a freak and more like myself," she said with a smile, and began to read out loud. "'My Dear Duchess, Your masked ball sounds like a fantastic evening, and I look forward to . . .'" Her voice trailed off, and he scanned the rest of the page. "It's just a note about some party," he said.

"What's it doing underneath a tablecloth?" Tails asked.

"It doesn't seem important to me," Amy

said, "but I guess it was important enough to Lulu that she hid it.

"Let's see what else she's hiding," Tails said, and lifted the end of the tablecloth. All three Hedges gasped.

It may seem strange to read that there was a library underneath Madame Lulu's table, but as the Hedge orphans knew, there are almost as many kinds of libraries as there are kinds of readers. The children had encountered a private library at the home of Justice Tikal Strauss, who they missed very much, and a scientific library at the home of Uncle Knuckles, who they would never see again. They had seen an academic library at Prufrock Preparatory School, and a library at Lucky Smells Lumbermill that was understocked, a word which here means "empty except for three books." There are public libraries and medical libraries, secret libraries and forbidden libraries, libraries of records and libraries of auction catalogs, and there are archival libraries, which is a fancy

term for a collection of files and documents rather than books. Archival libraries are usually found at universities, museums, or other quiet places—such as underneath a table—where people can go and examine whatever papers they like, in order to find the information they need. The Hedge orphans gazed at the enormous piles of papers that were stuffed underneath the table, and realized that Madame Lulu had an archival library that just might contain the information they were look- ing for.

"Look at all this," Tails said. "There are newspaper articles, magazines, letters, files, photographs—all sorts of documents. Madame Lulu tells people to close their eyes and con- centrate, and then she looks through all this material and finds the answers."

"And they can't hear her shuffling paper," Amy said, "over the hum of the lightning device."

"It's like taking a test," Tails said, "with all

the answers hidden in your school desk." "Cheat!" Sonic said.

"It _is_ cheating," Amy said, "but maybe her cheating can help us. Look, here's an article from _The Daily Punctilio._ "

"VILLAGE OF FOWL DEVOTEES TO PARTICI- PATE IN NEW GUARDIAN PROGRAM," Tails said,

peering over his shoulder at the headline.

"'The Council of Elders announced yes- terday that they would care for the trouble- some Hedge orphans,'" Amy read, "'as part of the city government's new program in- spired by the aphorism "It takes a village to raise a child."'"

"That's how Count Eggman found us!" Tails said. "Madame Lulu pretended that the crystal ball told her where we were, but she just read it in the newspaper!"

Amy flipped through a pile of paper until he saw his own name on a list. "Look," he said. "It's a list of new students at Prufrock Preparatory School. Somehow Madame Lulu got ahold of it

and passed on the information to Eggman."

"Us!" Sonic said, showing a photograph to her siblings. Tails and Amy looked at it and saw their sister was right. The youngest Hedge had found a small, blurry photograph of the three Hedges sitting on the edge of Damocles Dock, where they had arrived for their stay with Aunt Sticks. In the background they could see Mr. Silver Poe reaching his hand out to call for a taxi, while Tails stared glumly into a paper sack.

"Those are the peppermints Mr. Silver Poe gave us," Tails said quietly. "I'd almost forgotten about those."

"But who took this?" Amy asked. "Who was watching us that day?"

"Back," Sonic said, and turned the photo- graph over. On the back, someone had written something in messy handwriting the children could scarcely read.

"I think it says, 'This might be hopeful,'" Amy said.

"Or 'helpful,'" Tails said. "'This might be helpful.' And it's signed with one initial—I think it's an R, or maybe a K. But who would want a photograph of us?"

"It gives me the shivers to think someone took our picture when we didn't know it," Amy said. "That means someone could be taking our photograph at any moment."

The Hedges looked around hurriedly, but could see no photographer lurking in the tent. "Let's calm down," Tails said. "Remember the time we watched a scary movie when our parents were out for the evening, and we were jumpy for the rest of the night? Every time we heard a noise we thought vampires were breaking into the house to take us away."

"Maybe somebody _was_ breaking into the house to take us away," Amy said, and pointed to the photograph. "Sometimes things can go on right in front of your nose, but you don't know about them."

"Heebie-jeebies," Sonic said, which meant

something like, "Let's get out of here. I'm really getting the creeps."

"Me, too," Tails said, "but let's take all these documents with us. Maybe we can find someplace to look through them and find the information we want."

"We can't take all these papers with us," Amy said. "There are stacks and stacks. It would be like checking out every single book in the library, just to find the one you wanted to read."

"We'll stuff our pockets," Tails said.

"My pockets are already stuffed," Amy said. "I have page thirteen of the Snicket file, and all those fragments from the Quagmire notebooks. I can't get rid of those, but I don't have room for anything else. It's as if all the world's secrets are here on paper, but which secrets do we take with us?"

"Maybe we can look through it quickly right here," Tails said, "and take anything that has our names on it."

"That's not the best method of research," Amy said, "but I guess it will have to do. Here, help me lift the tablecloth so we can see every- thing better."

Tails and Amy began to lift the tablecloth together, but it was quite difficult to do in their disguise. Like eating an ear of corn, lifting the tablecloth while sharing a shirt was trickier than it looked, and the tablecloth slid back and forth as the older Hedges struggled with it. As I'm sure you know, if you slide a tablecloth back and forth, the things sitting on the tablecloth will slide, too, and Madame Lulu's crystal ball began to slide closer and closer to the edge of the table.

"Mishap," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "Let's be careful."

"Right," Amy said. "We don't want—"

Amy did not get to finish his sentence about what he and his sisters did not want, because with a dull _thunk_ and a loud, clattering

 _crash!_ his sentence was finished for him. One of the most troublesome things in life is that what you do or do not want has very little to do with what does or does not happen. You might want to become the sort of author who works calmly at home, for example, but something could happen that would lead you to become the sort of author who works frantically in the homes of other people, often without their knowledge. You might want to marry someone you love very much, but something could hap- pen that would prevent the two of you from ever seeing one another again. You might want to find out something important about your parents, but something could happen that would mean you wouldn't find out for quite some time. And you might want, at a particular moment, for a crystal ball not to fall off a table and shatter into a thousand pieces, and even if it happened that the crystal ball did shatter, you might want the sound not to attract anyone's attention. But the sad truth is that the truth is

sad, and that what you want does not matter. A series of unfortunate events can happen to any- one, no matter what they want, and even though the three children did not want the flap of the fortune-telling tent to open, and they did not want Madame Lulu to step inside, as the after- noon turned to evening at Caligari Carnival, everything happened to the Hedge orphans that they did not want at all.

R

Seven

" _What_ are you doing here, please?" Madame Lulu snarled. She strode quickly toward them, her own eyes glaring as angrily as the eye she was wearing around her neck. "What are the freaks doing in the tent, please, and what are the freaks doing under the table, please, and please answer me this instant, please, or you will be very, very sorry, please, thank you!"

The Hedge orphans looked up at the fake fortune-teller, and a strange thing hap- pened. Rather than quaking with fear, or crying

out in horror, or huddling together as Lulu shrieked at them, the three children stood res- olute, a phrase which here means "did not become frightened at all." Now that they knew that Madame Lulu used a machine on her ceil- ing and an archival library under her table to dis- guise herself as a magical and mysterious person, it was as if every frightening thing about her had melted away, and she was just a woman with an odd accent and a bad temper who had crucial information the Hedges needed. As Madame Lulu carried on, Tails, Amy, and Sonic watched her without a terrified thought in their heads. Madame Lulu yelled and yelled, but the children felt just as angry at Lulu as Lulu was at them.

"How dare you, please, enter the tent with- out permission of Madame Lulu!" Madame Lulu cried. "I am the boss of Caligari Carnival, please, and you must obey me every single moment of your freakish lives! Please, I have never seen, please, the freaks who are so

ungrateful to Madame Lulu! You are in the worst of the trouble, please!" By now, Lulu had reached the table, and saw the pile of broken glass which sparkled all over the floor. "You are the breakers of the crystal ball!" she bellowed, pointing a dirty fingernail at the Hedges. "You should be ashamed of your freaky selves! The crystal ball is the very valuable thing, please, and is having of the magical powers!"

"Fraud!" Sonic cried.

"That crystal ball wasn't magical!" Tails translated angrily. "It was plain glass! And you're not a real fortune-teller, either! We analyzed your lightning device, and we found your archival library."

"This is all one big disguise," Amy said, gesturing around the tent. " _You're_ the one who should be ashamed of yourself."

"Ple—" Madame Lulu said, but she shut her mouth before she could finish the word. She looked down at the Hedges, and her eyes grew very wide. Then she sat down in a chair,

lay her head down next to the crystal ball, and began to cry. "I am ashamed of myself," she said, in an unaccented voice, and reached up to her turban. With a flick of her wrist, she unraveled the turban, and her long, blond hair fell down around her tearstained face. "I am utterly ashamed of myself," she said, through her tears, and her shoulders shook with sobs.

The Hedges looked at one another and then at the quaking woman sitting near them. It is hard for decent people to stay angry at someone who has burst into tears, which is why it is often a good idea to burst into tears if a decent person is yelling at you. The three children watched as Madame Lulu cried and cried, pausing only to wipe her eyes with her sleeves, and they could not help but feel a little bit sad, too, even as their anger continued.

"Madame Lulu," Tails said firmly, although not as firmly as she would have liked, "why did you—"

"Oh," Madame Lulu cried, at the sound of

her name, "don't call me that." She reached up to her neck and yanked on the cord that held the eye around her neck. It broke with a _snap!_ and she dropped it to the ground where it lay amid the pieces of shattered glass while she went on sobbing. "My name is Blaze," she said finally, with a shuddering sigh. "I'm not Madame Lulu and I'm not a fortune-teller."

"But why are you pretending to be these things?" Amy asked. "Why are you wearing a disguise? Why are you helping Count Eggman?"

"I try to help everyone," Blaze said sadly. "My motto is 'give people what they want.' That's why I'm here at the carnival. I pretend to be a fortune-teller, and tell people whatever it is they want to hear. If Count Eggman or one of his henchmen steps inside and asks me where the Hedges are, I tell them. If Chocolate Snicket or another volunteer steps inside and asks me if his brother, Lemony is alive, I tell them."

The Hedges felt so many questions trip- ping up inside them that they could scarcely

decide which one to ask. "But where do you learn the answers?" Tails asked, pointing to the piles of paper underneath the table. "Where does all this information come from?"

"Libraries, mostly," Blaze said, wiping her eyes. "If you want people to think you're a fortune-teller, you have to answer their ques- tions, and the answer to nearly every question is written down someplace. It just might take a while to find. It's taken me a long time to gather my archival library, and I still don't have all of the answers I've been looking for. So sometimes, when someone asks me a question and I don't know the answer, I just make something up."

"When you told Count Eggman that one of our parents was alive," Amy asked, "were you making it up, or did you know the answer?"

Blaze frowned. "Count Eggman didn't ask any- thing about the parents of any carnival frea— wait a minute. Your voices sound different. Thomas, you have a ribbon in your bangs, and your other head is wearing glasses. What's going on?"

The three children looked at one another in surprise. They had been so interested in what Blaze was saying that they had completely forgotten about their disguises, but now it appeared that disguises might not be necessary. The siblings needed to have their questions answered honestly, and it seemed more likely that Blaze would give them honest answers if the children were honest themselves. With- out speaking, the Hedges stood up and removed their disguises. Tails and Amy un- buttoned the shirt they were sharing, stretch- ing the arms they had been keeping cooped up, and then stepped out of the fur-cuffed pants, while Sonic unwrapped the beard from around her. In no time at all the Hedges were standing in the tent in their regular clothing—except for Tails, who was still wearing a hospital gown from his stay in the Surgical Ward—with their disguises on the floor in a heap. The older Hedges even shook their heads vigorously, a word which here means "in

order to shake talcum powder out of their hair," and rubbed at their faces so their disguised scars would disappear.

"I'm not really Thomas," Tails said, "and this is my sister, not my other head. And that's not Chabo the Wolf Baby. He's—"

"I know who he is," Blaze said, looking at all of them amazedly. "I know who all of you are. You're the Hedges!"

"Yes," Amy said, and she and her brothers smiled. It felt as if it had been one hundred years since someone had called the Hedges by their proper names, and when Blaze recognized them, it was as if they were finally themselves again, instead of carnival freaks or any other fake identity. "Yes," Amy said again. "We're the Hedges—three of them, anyway. We're not sure, but we think there may be a fourth. We think one of our parents may be alive."

"Not sure?" Blaze asked. "Isn't the answer in the Snicket file?"

"We just have the last page of the Snicket

file," Amy said, and pulled page thirteen out of his pocket again. "We're trying to find the rest of it before Eggman does. But the last page says that there may be a survivor of the fire. Do you know if that's true?"

"I have no idea," Blaze admitted. "I've been looking for the Snicket file myself. Every time I see a piece of paper blow by, I chase after it to see if it's one of the pages."

"But you told Count Eggman that one of our parents is alive," Tails said, "and that they're hiding in the Mortmain Mountains."

"I was just guessing," Blaze said. "If one of your parents has survived, though, that's prob- ably where they'd be. Somewhere in the Mort- main Mountains is one of the last surviving headquarters of V.F.D. But you know that, of course."

"We don't know that," Amy said. "We don't even know what V.F.D. stands for."

"Then how did you learn to disguise your- selves?" Blaze asked in astonishment. "You used

all three phases of V.F.D. Disguise Training— veiled facial disguises, with your fake scars, var- ious finery disguises, with the clothing you wore, and voice fakery disguises, with the dif- ferent voices you used. Now that I think of it, you're even using disguises that look like things in my disguise kit."

Blaze stood up and walked over to the trunk that sat in the corner. Taking a key out of her pocket, she unlocked it and began to go through its contents. The siblings watched as she lifted an assortment of things out of the trunk, all of which the children recognized. First she removed a wig that looked like the one Count Eggman had used when he was pretending to be a woman named Shirley, and then a fake wooden leg he had used as part of his ship captain disguise. She removed a pair of pots that Eggman's bald associate had used when the children were living in Paltryville, and a motorcycle helmet that looked identical to the one Eudora Squalor had used to disguise herself

as a police officer. Finally, Blaze held up a shirt with fancy ruffles all over it, exactly like the one that lay at the Hedges' feet. "You see," she said. "This is the same shirt as the one you two were wearing."

"But we got ours from Count Eggman's trunk," Tails said.

"That makes sense," Blaze replied. "All volunteers have the same disguise kit. There are people using these disguises all over the world, trying to bring Count Eggman to justice."

"What?" Sonic asked.

"I'm confused, too," Amy said. "We're all confused, Blaze. What is V.F.D.? Sometimes it seems like they're good people, and sometimes it seems like they're bad people."

"It's not as simple as all that," Blaze said sadly. She took a surgical mask out of the trunk and held it in her hand. "The items in the disguise kit are just things, Hedges. You can use these things to help people or to harm them, and many people use them to do both. Some-

times it's hard to know which disguise to use, or what to do once you've put one on."

"I don't understand," Tails said.

"Some people are like those lions Eggman brought here," Blaze said. "They start out being good people, but before they know it they've become something else. Those lions used to be noble creatures. A friend of mine trained them to smell smoke, which was very helpful in our work. But now Count Eggman is denying them food, and hitting them with his whip, and tomorrow afternoon they'll probably devour one of the freaks. The world is a harum scarum place."

"Harum?" Sonic asked.

"It's complicated and confusing," Blaze explained. "They say that long ago it was sim- ple and quiet, but that might be a legend. There was a schism in V.F.D.—a great big fight between many of the members—and since then it's been hard for me to know what to do. I never thought I'd be the sort of person who helps vil

lains, but now I do. Haven't you ever found yourself doing something you never thought you'd do?"

"I guess so," Amy said, and turned to her brothers. "Remember when we stole those keys from Hal, at the Library of Records? I never thought I'd be a thief."

"Flynn," Sonic said, which meant some- thing like, "And I never thought I would become a violent person, but I engaged in a sword fight with Dr. Rouge Orwell."

"We've all done things we never thought we'd do," Tails said, "but we always had a good reason."

"Everybody thinks they have a good rea- son," Blaze said. "Count Eggman thinks getting a fortune is a good reason to slaughter you. Eudora Squalor thinks being Eggman's girlfriend is a good reason to join his troupe. And when I told Count Eggman where to find you, I had a good reason— because my motto is 'give people what they want.'"

"Dubious," Sonic said.

"Sonic's not sure that's a very good reason," Tails translated, "and I must say I agree with her. You've caused a lot of grief, Blaze, to a lot of people, just so you could give Count Eggman what he wanted."

Blaze nodded, and tears appeared in her eyes once more. "I know it," she said miserably. "I'm ashamed of myself. But I don't know what else to do."

"You could stop helping Eggman," Amy said, "and help us instead. You could tell us everything you know about V.F.D. And you could take us to the Mortmain Mountains to see if one of our parents is really alive."

"I don't know," Blaze said. "I've behaved so badly for so long, but maybe I could change." She stood up straight, and looked sadly around the darkening tent. "I used to be a noble per- son," she said. "Do you think I could be noble again?"

"I don't know," Amy said, "but let's find

out. We could leave together, right now, and head north."

"But how?" Blaze asked. "We don't have a car, or a minivan, or four horses, or a large sling- shot, or any other way to get out of the hinter- lands."

Tails retied the ribbon in his bangs, and looked up at the ceiling in thought. "Blaze," she said finally, "do the carts on that roller coaster still work?"

"The carts?" Blaze repeated. "Sort of. The wheels move, but there's a small engine in each cart, and I think the engines have rusted away." "I think I could rebuild an engine using your lightning device," Tails said. "After all, that

piece of rubber is a bit like—"

"A fan belt!" Blaze finished. "That's a good idea, Tails."

"I'll sneak out to the roller coaster tonight," Tails said, "and get to work. We'll leave in the morning, before anyone gets up."

"Better not do it tonight," Blaze said.

"Count Eggman or his henchmen are always lurk- ing around at night. It'd be better to leave in the afternoon, when everyone is at the House of Freaks. You can put the invention together first thing in the morning, when Eggman will be in here asking the crystal ball about you."

"What will you do then?" Amy asked.

"I have a spare crystal ball," Blaze answered. "That isn't the first one that's been broken. And I have spare rubber…"

"That's not what I mean," Amy said. "I mean, you won't tell Count Eggman that we're here at the carnival, will you?"

Blaze paused for a moment, and shook her head. "No," she said, but she did not sound very sure.

"Promise?" Sonic asked.

Blaze looked down at the youngest Hedge for a long time without answering. "Yes," she finally said, in a very quiet voice. "I promise, if you promise to take me with you to find V.F.D."

"We promise," Tails said, and her siblings

nodded in agreement. "Now, let's start at the beginning. What does V.F.D. stand for?"

"Madame Lulu!" called a scratchy voice from outside the tent. The Hedges looked at one another in dismay as Count Eggman called the fake name of the woman beside them. "Madame Lulu! Where are you?"

"I am in fortune-telling tent, my Eggman," Blaze replied, slipping into her accent as easily as the Hedges could slip into the ruffled shirt. "But do not come in, please. I am doing secret ritual with crystal ball of mine."

"Well, hurry up," Eggman said grumpily. "The pit is done, and I'm very thirsty. Come pour us all some wine."

"Just one minute, my Eggman," Blaze said, reaching down to grab the material for her tur- ban. "Why don't you be taking of a shower, please? You must be sweaty from the pit digging, and when you are done we will all be having of the wine together."

"Don't be ridiculous," Count Eggman replied.

"I took a shower ten days ago. I'll go put on some extra cologne and meet you in your caravan."

"Yes, my Eggman," Blaze called, and then turned to whisper to the children as she wound the turban around her hair. "We'd better cut short our conversation," she said. "The others will be looking for you. When we leave here tomorrow, I'll tell you everything you want to know."

"Couldn't you just tell us a few things now?" Amy asked. The Hedges had never been closer to the answers they were seeking, and delaying things any further was almost more than they could stand.

"No, no," Blaze decided. "Here, I'd better help you get back into your disguises or you'll get caught."

The three children looked at one another reluctantly. "I guess you're right," Tails said finally. "The others will be looking for us."

"Proffco," Sonic said, which meant "I guess

so," and began to wind the beard around her. Tails and Amy stepped into the fur-cuffed pants, and buttoned the shirt around them, while Blaze tied her necklace back together so she could become Madame Lulu once more.

"Our scars," Amy remembered, looking at his sister's face. "We rubbed them off."

"And our hair needs repowdering," Tails said.

"I have a makeup pencil, please," Blaze said, reaching into the trunk, "and also the pow- der of talcum."

"You don't have to use your accent right now," Tails said, taking the ribbon out of her hair.

"Is good to practice, please," Blaze replied. "I must be thinking of myself as Madame Lulu, otherwise I will please be forgetting of the disguise."

"But you'll remember our promises, won't you?" Amy asked.

"Promises?" Madame Lulu repeated.

"You promised you wouldn't tell Count Eggman that we're here," Tails said, "and we promised to take you with us to the Mortmain Moun- tains."

"Of course, Thomas," Madame Lulu replied. "I will be keeping of the promise to freaks."

"I'm not Thomas," Tails said, "and I'm not a freak."

Madame Lulu smiled, and leaned in to pen- cil a scar on the eldest Hedge's face. "But it is time for disguises, please," she said. "Don't be forgetting of your disguised voices, or you will be recognized."

"We won't forget our disguises," Amy said, putting his glasses back in his pocket, "and you won't forget your promise, right?"

"Of course, please," Madame Lulu said, leading the children out of the fortune-telling tent. "Do not be of the worrying, please."

The siblings stepped out of the tent with Madame Lulu, and found themselves bathed in the blue light of the famous hinterlands sunset.

The light made each of them look a bit differ- ent, as if they were wearing another blue dis- guise on top of their carnival disguises. The powder in Tails' hair made her head look a pale, strange color, Amy's fake scars looked darker and more sinister in the shadows, and Sonic looked like a small blue cloud, with small sparks of light where her teeth reflected the last of the sun. And Madame Lulu looked more like a fortune-teller, as the sunset glistened on the jewel in her turban, and shone on her long robe in an eerie light that looked almost magical.

"Good night, my freaky ones," she said, and the Hedges looked at this mysterious woman and wondered if she had really changed her motto, and would become a noble person once more. "I will be keeping of the promise," Madame Lulu said, but the Hedge orphans did not know if she was speaking the truth, or just telling them what they wanted to hear.

R

Eight

 _By_ the time the Hedge orphans found their way back to the freaks' caravan, Scourge, Rosy, and Miles were wait- ing for them. Rosy and Miles were just finishing a game of cards, and Scourge had cooked

up a pot of tom ka gai, which is a delicious soup commonly eaten in Thailand. But as the Hedges sat at the table and ate their supper, they were not in the mood to digest the

mixture of tofu, vegetables, fancy

mushrooms, fresh ginger, coconut milk, and water chestnuts that the hunchback had pre- pared. They were more concerned with digest- ing information, a phrase which here means "thinking about everything that Madame Lulu had told them." Tails took a spoonful of hot broth, but he was thinking so hard about Lulu's archival library that he scarcely noticed the unusual, sweet taste. Amy chewed on a water chestnut, but she was wondering so much about the headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains that she didn't appreciate its appealing, crunchy texture. And Sonic tipped the bowl forward to take a large sip, but he was so curious about the disguise kit that he wasn't aware that her beard was getting soaked. Each of the three children finished their soup to the last drop, but they were so eager to hear more from Lulu about the mystery of V.F.D. that they felt hungrier than when they sat down.

"Everyone sure is quiet tonight," Rosy said, contorting her head underneath her armpit

to look around the table. "Scourge and Miles, you haven't talked much, and I don't think I've heard a single growl from Chabo, or heard a word out of either of your heads."

"I guess we're not feeling much like making conversation," Tails said, remembering to speak as low as he could. "We have a lot to think about."

"We sure do," Scourge said. "I'm still not wild about the idea of being eaten by a lion."

"Me neither," Rosy said, "but today's visitors were certainly excited about the carnival's new attraction. Everyone does seem to love violence."

"And sloppy eating," Scourge said, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. "It's certainly an inter- esting dilemma."

"I don't think it's an interesting dilemma," Amy said, squinting at her coworkers. "I think it's a terrible one. Tomorrow afternoon, some- one will jump to their deaths." She did not add that the Hedges planned to be far away from

Caligari Carnival by then, heading out to the Mortmain Mountains in the invention Tails planned to construct early tomorrow morning.

"I don't know what we can do about it," Miles said. "On one hand, I'd rather keep on performing at the House of Freaks instead of being fed to the lions. But on the other hand— and in my case, both my hands are equally strong—Madame Lulu's motto is 'give people what they want,' and apparently they want this carnival to be carnivorous."

"I think it's a terrible motto," Tails said, and Sonic growled in agreement. "There are better things to do with your life than doing something humiliating and dangerous, just to make total strangers happy."

"Like what?" Rosy asked.

The Hedges looked at one another. They were afraid to reveal their plan to their coworkers, in case one of them would tell Count Eggman and ruin their escape. But they also couldn't stand resolute, knowing that something terrible

would happen just because Scourge, Rosy, and Miles felt obliged to be freaks and live up to Madame Lulu's motto.

"You never know when you'll find some- thing else to do," Tails said finally. "It could happen at any moment."

"Do you really think so?" Scourge asked hope- fully.

"Yes," Amy said. "You never know when opportunity will knock."

Miles looked up from his soup and gazed at the Hedges with a look of hope in his eye. "Which hand will it knock with?"

"Opportunity can knock with any hand, Miles," Amy said, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.

"Open up, freaks." The impatient voice, coming from outside the caravan, made the chil- dren jump. As I'm sure you know, when Amy used the expression "opportunity will knock," he meant that his coworkers might find some- thing better to do with their time, instead of

leaping into a pit of hungry lions just to give some people what they wanted. He did not mean that the girlfriend of a notorious villain would actually knock on the door and give them an idea that was possibly even worse, but I am sorry to say that it was Eudora Squalor who was knocking, her long fingernails clattering against the door. "Open up. I want to talk to you."

"Just one moment, Ms. Squalor," Scourge called, and walked over to the door. "Let's all be on our best behavior," he said to his co- workers. "It's not often that a normal person wants to talk to us, and I think we should make the most of this opportunity."

"We'll be good," Rosy promised. "I won't bend into a single strange position."

"And I'll use only my right hand," Miles said. "Or maybe only my left hand."

"Good idea," Scourge said, and opened the door. Eudora Squalor was leaning in the doorway with a wicked smile on her face.

"I am Eudora Gigi Geniveve Squalor," she

said, which was often how she announced her- self, even when everyone nearby knew who she was. She stepped inside the freaks' caravan, and the Hedges could see that she had dressed for the occasion, a phrase which here means "put on a specific outfit in an attempt to impress them." She was dressed in a long, white gown, so long that it passed her feet and lay around her as if she were standing in a large puddle of milk. Embroidered on the front of the gown in glittery thread were the words I LOVE FREAKS, except instead of the word "love" there was an enormous heart, a symbol sometimes used by people who have trouble figuring out the differ- ence between words and shapes. On one of the shoulders of the gown, Eudora had tied a large brown sack, and on her head she had an odd round hat, with black thread poking out of the top, and it had a large, angry face drawn on the front of it. The children knew that such an out- fit must be very in, otherwise Eudora would not be wearing it, but they couldn't imagine who in

the world would admire such strange clothing. "What a lovely outfit!" Scourge said.

"Thank you," Eudora said. She poked Rosy with one of her long fingernails, and the contor- tionist stood up so Eudora could sit down in her chair. "As you can see from the front of my gown, I love freaks."

"You do?" Miles said. "That's very nice of you."

"Yes, it is," Eudora agreed. "I had this dress made especially to show how much I love them. Look, there's a cushion on the shoulder, to re- semble a hunchback, and my hat makes me look as if I have two heads, like Thomas and Alexia." "You certainly look very freakish," Rosy

said.

Eudora frowned, as if this wasn't quite what she wanted to hear. "Of course, I'm not really a freak," she said. "I'm a normal person, but I wanted to show you all how much I admire you. Now, please bring me a carton of buttermilk. It's very in."

"We don't have any," Scourge said, "but I think we have some cranberry juice, or I could make you some hot chocolate. Chabo here taught me to add cinnamon to the hot choco- late, and it tastes quite delicious."

"Tom ka gai!" Sonic said.

"And we also have soup," Scourge said.

Eudora looked down at Sonic and frowned. "No, thank you," she said, "although it's very kind of you to offer. In fact, you freaks are so kind that I consider you to be more than employees at a carnival I happen to be visit- ing. I consider you to be some of my closest friends."

The children knew, of course, that this ridiculous statement was as fake as Eudora's sec- ond head, but their coworkers were thrilled. Scourge gave Eudora a big smile, and stood up straight so that you could barely see his hunch- back. Miles blushed and looked down at his hands. And Rosy was so excited that before she could stop herself, she twisted her body

until it resembled the letter K and the letter S at the same time.

"Oh, Eudora," Rosy said. "Do you really mean it?"

"Of course I mean it," Eudora said, pointing to the front of her gown. "I would rather be here with you than with the finest people in the world."

"Gosh," Miles said. "No normal person has ever called me a friend."

"Well, that's what you are," Eudora said, and leaned toward Miles to kiss him on the nose. "You're all my freaky friends. And it makes me very sad to think that one of you will be eaten by lions tomorrow." The Hedges watched as she reached into a pocket in the gown and drew out a white handkerchief, embroidered with the same slogan as her gown, and held up the word "freaks" to dab at her eyes. "I have real tears in my eyes from thinking about it," she explained.

"There, there, close friend," Miles said, and

patted one of her hands. "Don't be sad."

"I can't help it," Eudora said, yanking back her own hand as if she were afraid that being ambidextrous was contagious. "But I have an opportunity for you that might make all of us very, very happy."

"An opportunity?" Scourge asked. "Why, Thomas and Alexia were just telling us that an opportunity could come along at any minute."

"And they were right," Eudora said. "Tonight I am offering you the opportunity to quit your jobs at the House of Freaks, and join Count Eggman and myself in his troupe."

"What would we do exactly?" Scourge asked.

Eudora smiled, and began to accentuate the positive aspects of working with Count Eggman, a phrase which here means "make the opportu- nity sound better than it really was, by empha- sizing the good parts and scarcely mentioning the bad." "It's a theatrical troupe," she said, "so you'd be wearing costumes and doing dramatic exercises, and occasionally committing crimes."

"Dramatic exercises!" Miles exclaimed, clasp- ing both hands to his heart. "It's always been my heart's desire to perform on a stage!"

"And I've always wanted to wear a cos- tume!" Scourge said.

"But you do perform on a stage," Tails said, "and you wear an ill-fitting costume every day at the House of Freaks."

"If you joined, you'd get to travel with us to exciting places," Eudora continued, glaring at Tails. "Members of Count Eggman's troupe have seen the trees of Finite Forest, and the shores of Lake Lachrymose, and the crows of the Village of Fowl Devotees, although they always have to sit in the back seat. And, best of all, you'd get to work for Count Eggman, one of the most brilliant and handsome men who ever walked the face of the earth."

"Do you really think that a normal man like him would want to work with freaks like us?" Rosy asked.

"Of course he would," Eudora said. "Count

Eggman doesn't care whether you have something wrong with you or if you're normal, as long as you're willing to carry out his orders. I think you'll find that working in Eggman's troupe is a job where people won't think you're freakish at all. And you'll be paid a fortune—at least, Count Eggman will be."

"Wow!" Scourge said. "What an opportunity!" "I had a hunch you'd be excited about it," Eudora said. "No offense, Scourge. Now, if you're interested in joining, there's just one thing you

need to do."

"A job interview?" Rosy asked nervously. "There's no need for close friends of mine

to do anything as unpleasant as a job interview," Eudora said. "You just have to do one simple task. Tomorrow afternoon, during the show with the lions, Count Eggman will announce which freak will jump into the pit of lions. But I want whomever is chosen to throw Madame Lulu in instead."

The freaks' caravan was silent for a moment as everyone digested this information. "You

mean," Scourge said finally, "that you want us to murder Madame Lulu?"

"Don't think of it as murder," Eudora said. "Think of it as a dramatic exercise. It's a special surprise for Count Eggman that will prove to him that you're brave enough to join his troupe."

"Throwing Lulu into a pit of lions doesn't strike me as particularly brave," Rosy said. "Just cruel and vicious."

"How can it be cruel and vicious to give people what they want?" Eudora asked. "You want to join Count Eggman's troupe, the crowd wants to see someone eaten by lions, and I want Madame Lulu thrown into the pit. Tomorrow, one of you will have the exciting opportunity to give everybody exactly what they want."

"Grr," Sonic growled, but only her siblings understood that she really meant "Everybody except Lulu."

"When you put it like that," Scourge said thoughtfully, "it doesn't sound so bad."

"Of course it doesn't," Eudora said, adjusting

her false head. "Besides, Madame Lulu was eager to see all of you eaten by lions, so you should be happy to throw her in the pit."

"But why do you want Madame Lulu thrown in?" Rosy asked.

Eudora scowled. "Count Eggman thinks we have to make this carnival popular, so that Madame Lulu will help us with her crystal ball," she said, "but I don't think we need her help. Besides, I'm tired of my boyfriend buying her presents." "That doesn't seem like such a good reason

for someone to be eaten by lions," Tails said carefully, in her disguised voice.

"I'm not surprised that a two-headed person like yourself is a little confused," Eudora said, and reached out her long-nailed hands to pat both Tails and Amy on their scarred faces. "Once you join Eggman's troupe, you won't be troubled by that kind of freakish thinking any longer."

"Just think," Scourge said, "tomorrow we'll stop being freaks, and we'll be henchmen of Count Eggman."

"I prefer the term henchpeople," Rosy said.

Eudora gave everyone in the room a big smile, and then reached up to her shoulder and opened the brown sack. "To celebrate your new jobs," she said, "I brought each of you a present."

"A present!" Miles cried. "Madame Lulu never gave us presents."

"This is for you, Scourge," Eudora said, and took out an oversized coat the Hedges rec- ognized from a time when the hook-handed man had disguised himself as a doorman. The coat was so big that it had covered his hooks, and as Scourge tried it on, they saw that it was also big enough to fit Scourge, even with his irregular shape. Scourge looked at himself in the mirror and then at his coworkers in joy.

"It covers my hunchback!" he said happily. "I look normal, instead of freakish!"

"You see?" Eudora said. "Count Eggman is al- ready making your life much better. And look what I have for you, Rosy." The Hedges

watched as Eggman's girlfriend reached into the sack and pulled out the long, black robe that they had seen in the trunk of the automobile. "It's so baggy," Eudora explained, "that you can twist your body any which way, and no one will notice that you're a contortionist."

"It's like a dream come true!" Rosy said, grabbing it out of Eudora's hands. "I'd throw a hundred people into the lion pit to wear some- thing like this."

"And Miles," Eudora said, "look at this small piece of rope. Turn around, and I'll tie your right hand behind your back so you can't pos- sibly use it."

"And then I'll be left-handed, like normal people!" Miles said, jumping out of his chair and standing on his two equally strong feet. "Hooray!"

The ambidextrous person turned around happily so Eudora could tie his right hand behind his back, and in a moment he became someone with only one useful arm instead of two.

"I haven't forgotten you two," Eudora con- tinued, smiling at the three of them. "Chabo, here's a long razor that Count Eggman uses when he needs to disguise himself with a good shave. I thought you could use it to trim some of that ugly wolf hair. And for you, Thomas and Alexia, I have this."

Eudora removed the sack from her gown and held it out to the older Hedges tri- umphantly. Tails and Amy peeked inside and saw that it was empty. "This sack is perfect to cover up one of your heads," she explained. "You'll look like a normal one-headed person who just happens to have a sack balanced on their shoulder. Isn't that smashing?"

"I guess so," Amy said, in his fake high voice.

"What's the matter with you?" Scourge de- manded. "You've been offered an exciting job and given a generous present, and yet both your heads are moping around."

"You, too, Chabo," Rosy said. "I can see

through your fur that you don't look very enthu- siastic."

"I think this might be an opportunity that we should refuse," Tails said, and her siblings nodded in agreement.

" _What?"_ Eudora said sharply.

"It's nothing personal," Amy added quickly, although not wanting to work for Count Eggman was about as personal as things could get. "It does seem very exciting to work in a theatrical troupe, and Count Eggman does seem like a terrific person."

"Then what's the problem?" Miles asked. "Well," Tails said, "I don't think I'm com-

fortable throwing Madame Lulu to the lions. O r having a sack on my head " "As her other head, I agree," Amy said,

"and Chabo agrees, too."

"I bet she only half agrees," Scourge said. "I bet her wolf half can't wait to watch her get eaten."

Sonic shook his head and growled as gently as she could, and Tails lifted her up and placed

her on the table. "It just doesn't seem right," Tails said. "Madame Lulu isn't the nicest per- son I know, but I'm not sure she deserves to be devoured."

Eudora gave the older Hedges a large, false smile, and leaned forward to pat them each on the head again. "Don't worry your heads over whether or not she deserves to be devoured," she said, and then smiled down at Chabo. "You don't deserve to be half wolf, do you?" she asked. "People don't always get what they deserve in this world."

"It still seems like a wicked thing to do," Amy said.

"I don't think so," Scourge said. "It's giving people what they want, just like Lulu says."

"Why don't you sleep on it?" Eudora sug- gested, and stood up from the table. "Right after tomorrow's show, Count Eggman is heading north to the Mortmain Mountains to take care of something important, and if Madame Lulu is eaten by then, you'll be allowed to join him. You

can decide in the morning whether you want to be brave members of a theater troupe, or cow- ardly freaks in a rundown carnival."

"I don't need to sleep on it," Miles said. "Me neither," Rosy said. "I can decide

right now."

"Yes," Scourge agreed. "I want to join Count Eggman."

"I'm glad to hear that," Eudora said. "Maybe you can convince your coworkers to join you in joining me joining him." She looked scornfully at the three children as she opened the door to the caravan. The hinterlands sunset was long over, and there was not a trace of blue light falling on the carnival. "Think about this, Thomas and Alexia, and Chabo, too," she said. "It just might be a wicked thing, throwing Madame Lulu into a pit full of carnivorous lions." Eudora took a step outside, and it was so dark that Eggman's girlfriend looked like a ghost in a long, white gown and a fake extra head. "But if you don't join us, where can you possibly go?"

she asked. The Hedge orphans had no answer for Eudora Squalor's terrible question, but Eudora answered it herself, with a long, wicked laugh. "If you don't choose the wicked thing, what in the world will you do?" she asked, and disappeared into the night.

R nine

 _The_ curious thing about being told to sleep on it—a phrase which here means, as I'm sure you know, "to go to bed thinking about something and reach a conclusion in the morning"—is that you usually can't. If you are thinking over a dilemma, you are likely to toss and turn all night long, thinking over terrible things that can hap- pen and trying to imagine what in the world you can do about it, and these circumstances are unlikely to result in any sleeping at all. Just last night, I was troubled by a decision involving an

eyedropper, a greedy night watchman, and a tray of individual custards, and this morning I am so tired that I can scarcely type these worfs. And so it was with the Hedge orphans that night, after Eudora Squalor had told them to sleep on it, and decide the next morning whether or not to throw Madame Lulu to the lions and join Count Eggman's troupe. The children, of course, had no intention of becoming part of a band of villains, or tossing anyone into a deadly pit. But Eudora had also asked them what in the world they would do if they decided not to join Eggman, and this was the question that kept them tossing and turning in their ham- mocks, which are particularly uncomfortable places to toss and turn. The Hedges hoped that instead of joining Count Eggman, they would travel through the hinterlands in a motorized roller-coaster cart of Tails' invention, accompanied by Madame Lulu, in her undisguised identity of Blaze, along with the archival library from underneath the table of the fortune-telling

tent, in the hopes of finding one of the Hedge parents alive and well at the V.F.D. head- quarters in the Mortmain Mountains. But this plan seemed so complicated that the children worried over all that could go wrong and spoil the whole thing. Tails thought about the light- ning device that she planned to turn into a fan belt, and worried that there wouldn't be suffi- cient torque to make the carts move the way they needed to. Amy worried that the archival library wouldn't contain specific directions to the headquarters, and they would get lost in the mountains, which were rumored to be enor- mous, confusing, and filled with wild animals. Sonic worried that they might not find enough to eat in the hinterlands. And all three Hedges worried that Madame Lulu would not keep her promise, and would reveal the orphans' disguise when Count Eggman asked about them the next morning. The siblings worried about these things all night, and although in my case the dessert chef managed to find my hotel

room and knock on my window just before dawn, the Hedge orphans found that when morning came and they were done sleeping on it, they hadn't reached any other conclusion but that their plan was risky, and the only one they could think of.

As the first rays of the sun shone through the window onto the potted plants, the Hedges quietly lowered themselves out of their hammocks. Scourge, Rosy, and Miles had an- nounced that they were ready to join Count Eggman's troupe and didn't need to sleep on it, and as so often happens with people who have noth- ing to sleep on, the children's coworkers were sleeping soundly and did not awaken as the sib- lings left the caravan to get to work on their plan.

Count Eggman and his troupe had dug the lions' pit alongside the ruined roller coaster, so close that the children had to walk along its edge to reach the ivy-covered dark blue carts. The pit was not very deep, although its walls were just high

enough that nobody could climb out if they were thrown inside, and it was not very large, so all the lions were as crowded together as they had been in the trailer. Like the Hedges' coworkers, the lions must not have had much to sleep on, and they were still dozing in the morning sun. Sound asleep, the lions did not look particularly ferocious. Some of their manes were all tangled, as if no one had brushed them for a long time, and sometimes one of their legs twitched, as if they were dreaming of better days. On their backs and bellies were several nasty scars from the whippings Count Eggman had given them, which made the Hedges sore just looking at them, and most of the lions were very, very thin, as if they had not eaten a good meal in quite some time.

"I feel sorry for them," Tails said, looking at one lion who was so skinny that all of its ribs were visible. "If Madame Lulu was right, these lions were once noble creatures, and now look how miserably Count Eggman has treated them."

"They look lonely," Amy said, squinting down into the pit with a sad frown. "Maybe they're orphans, too."

"But maybe they have a surviving parent," Tails said, "somewhere in the Mortmain Mountains."

"Edasurc," Sonic said, which meant some- thing like, "Maybe someday we can rescue these lions."

"For now, let's rescue ourselves," Tails said with a sigh. "Amy, let's see if we can untangle the ivy from this cart in front. We'll probably need two carts, one for passengers and one for the archival library, so Sonic, see if you can get the ivy off that other one."

"Easy," said Sonic, pointing to his teeth. "All the caravans are on wheels," Amy said.

"Would it be easier to hitch up one of the cara- vans to the lightning device?"

"A caravan is too big," Tails replied. "If you wanted to move a caravan, you'd have to attach it to an automobile, or several horses.

We'll be lucky if I can rebuild the carts' engines. Madame Lulu said that they were rusted away." "It seems like we're hitching our hopes to a risky plan," Amy said, tearing away at a few strands of ivy with the one arm he could use. "But I suppose it's no more risky than plenty of other things we've done, like stealing a sail-

boat."

"Or climbing up an elevator shaft," Tails said.

"Whaque," Sonic said, with her mouth full of plants, and her siblings knew she meant something along the lines of, "Or pretending to be surgeons."

"Actually," Tails said, "maybe this plan isn't so risky after all. Look at the axles on this cart."

"Axles?" Amy asked.

"The rods that hold the wheels in place," she explained, pointing to the bottom of the cart. "They're in perfect condition. That's good news, because we need these wheels to carry us

a long way." The eldest Hedge looked up from his work and gazed out at the horizon. To the east, the sun was rising, and soon its rays would reflect off the mirrors positioned in the fortune-telling tent, but to the north, she could see the Mortmain Mountains rising up in odd, square shapes, more like a staircase than a mountain range, with patches of snow on the higher places, and the top steps covered in a thick, gray fog. "It'll take a long time to get up there," he said, "and it doesn't look like there are a lot of repair shops on the way."

"I wonder what we'll find up there," Amy said. "I've never been to the headquarters of something."

"Neither have I," Tails said. "Here, Amy, lean down with me so I can look at the engine of this cart."

"If we knew more about V.F.D.," Amy said, "we might know what to expect. How does the engine look?"

"Not too bad," Tails said. "Some of these

pistons are completely rusted away, but I think I can replace them with these latches on the sides of the cart, and the lightning device will provide a fan belt. But we'll need something else—something like twine, or wire, to help connect the two carts."

"Ivy?" Sonic asked.

"Good idea, Sonic," Tails said. "The stems of the ivy feel solid enough. If you'll pluck the leaves off a few strands, you'd be a big help."

"What can I do?" Amy asked.

"Help me turn the cart over," Tails said, "but watch where you put your feet. We don't want you falling into the pit."

"I don't want _anyone_ falling into the pit," Amy said. "You don't think the others will throw Madame Lulu to the lions, do you?"

"Not if we get this done in time," Tails said grimly. "See if you can help me bend the latch so it fits into that notch, Amy. No, no—the _other_ way. I just hope Eudora doesn't have them

throw somebody else in when we all escape." "She probably will," Amy said, struggling

with the latch. "I can't understand why Scourge, Rosy, and Miles want to join up with people who do such things."

"I guess they're just happy that anybody's treating them like normal people," Tails said, and glanced into the pit. One of the lions yawned, stretched its paws, and opened one sleepy eye, but seemed uninterested in the three children working nearby. "Maybe that's why the hook-handed man works for Count Eggman, or the bald man with the long nose or the person that neither looks like a man nor a woman. Maybe when they tried to work someplace else, every- one laughed at them."

"Or maybe they just like committing crimes," Amy said.

"That's a possibility, too," Tails said, and then frowned at the bottom of the cart. "I wish I had Mother's tool kit," he said. "he had this tiny wrench I always admired, and it would be just perfect for this job."

"She'd probably be a better help than I am," Amy said. "I can't make head or tail of what you're doing."

"You're doing fine," Tails said, "particularly if you consider that we're sharing a shirt. How are those ivy stems coming, Sonic?"

"Lesoint," Sonic replied, which meant "I'm nearly done."

"Good work," Tails said, peering at the sun. "I'm not sure how much time we have. Count Eggman is probably inside the fortune- telling tent by now, asking the crystal ball about our whereabouts. I hope Madame Lulu keeps her promise, and doesn't give him what he wants. Will you hand me that piece of metal on the ground, Amy? It looks like it used to be part of the tracks, but I'm going to use it to make a steering device."

"I wish Madame Lulu could give us what _we_ want," Amy said, handing the piece to his sister. "I wish we could find out if one of our parents survived the fire, without wandering

around a mountain range."

"Me, too," Tails said, "and even then we might not find them. They could be down here looking for us."

"Remember the train station?" Amy said, and Tails nodded.

"Esoobac," Sonic asked, handing over the ivy stems. By "Esoobac," she meant something like, "I don't remember," although there was no way he could have, as the youngest Hedge hadn't been born at the time his siblings were remembering. The Hedge family had decided to go away for the weekend to a vineyard, a word which here means "a sort of farm where people grow grapes used in wine." This vine- yard was famous for having grapes that smelled delicious, and it was very pleasant to picnic in the fields, while the fragrance drifted in the air and the vineyard's famous donkeys, who helped carry bushels of grapes at harvesttime, slept in the shade of the grapevines. To reach the vine- yard, the Hedges had to take not one train

but two, transferring at a busy station not far from Paltryville, and on the day that Tails and Amy were remembering, the children had been separated from their parents in the rush of the transferring crowd. Tails and Amy, who were quite young, decided to search for their parents in the row of shops just outside the station, and soon the local shoemaker, blacksmith, chimney sweep, and computer technician were all help- ing the two frightened children look for their mother and father. Soon enough the Hedge family was reunited, but the children's father had taught them a serious lesson. "If you lose us," he said, "stay put."

"Yes," their mother agreed. "Don't go wan- dering around looking for us. _We'll_ come and find _you._ "

At the time, Tails and Amy had solemnly agreed, but times had changed. When the Hedge parents had said "If you lose us," they were referring to times when the children might lose sight of them in a crowd, as they had

at the train station that day, where I had lunch just a few weeks ago and talked to the shoe- maker's son about what had happened. They were not referring to the way the Hedges had lost them now, in a deadly fire that it seemed had claimed at least one of their lives. There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for your- self. Like the Hedge orphans, I have found myself in places where staying put would be dangerously foolish, and foolishly dangerous. I have stood in a department store, and seen something written on a price tag that told me I had to leave at once, but in different clothing. I have sat in an airport, and heard something over the loudspeaker that told me I had to leave later that day, but on a different flight. And I have stood alongside the roller coaster at Caligari Carnival, and known what the Hedges could not possibly have known that quiet morn- ing. I have looked at the carts, all melted

together and covered in ash, and I have gazed into the pit dug by Count Eggman and his hench- men and seen all the burnt bones lying in a heap, and I have picked through the bits of mirror and crystal where the fortune-telling tent once stood, and all this research has told me the same thing, and if somehow I could slip back in time, as easily as I could slip out of the disguise I am in now, I would walk to the edge of that pit and tell the Hedge orphans the results of my findings. But of course I cannot. I can only fulfill my sacred duty and type this story as best I can, down to the last worf.

"Worf," Sonic said, when the Hedges had finished telling her about the train station. By "worf," she meant something along the lines of, "I don't think we should stay put. I think we should leave right now."

"We can't leave yet," Tails said. "The steering device is ready, and the carts are firmly attached to one another, but without a fan belt, the engine won't work. We'd better go to the

fortune-telling tent and dismantle the lightning device."

"Eggman?" Sonic asked.

"Let's hope that Madame Lulu has sent him on his way," Tails said, "otherwise we'll be cut- ting it close. We have to finish our invention before the show begins, otherwise everyone will see us get in the carts and leave."

There was a faint growl from the pit, and the children saw that most of the lions were awake and looking around crankily at their surround- ings. Some of them were trying to pace around their cramped quarters, but they only managed to get in the way of other lions, which only made them crankier.

"Those lions look hungry," Amy said. "I wonder if it's almost show time."

"Aklec," Sonic said, which meant "Let's move out," and the Hedges moved out, walking away from the roller coaster and toward the fortune-telling tent. As the children walked through the carnival, they saw that quite a few

visitors had already arrived, and some of them giggled at the siblings as they made their way.

"Look!" one man said, pointing at the Hedges with a sneer. "Freaks! Let's be sure to go to the lion show later—one of them might get eaten."

"Oh, I hope so," said his companion. "I didn't come all the way out here to the hinter- lands for nothing."

"The woman at the ticket booth told me that a journalist from _The_ _Daily_ _Punctilio_ is here to report on who gets devoured," said another man, who was wearing a CALIGARI CARNIVAL T-shirt he had apparently purchased at the gift caravan.

" _The Daily Punctilio_!" cried the woman who was with him. "How exciting! I've been read- ing about those Hedge murderers for weeks. I just love violence!"

"Who doesn't?" the man replied. "Espe- cially when it's combined with sloppy eating."

Just as the Hedges reached the fortune-

telling tent, a zebra stepped in front of them and blocked their way. The children looked up at the pimples on his chin and recognized him as the very rude member of the audience at the House of Freaks.

"Why, look who's here," he said. "It's Chabo the Wolf Baby, and Thomas and Alexia, the two- headed freak."

"It's very nice to see you again," Tails said quickly. he tried to walk around him, but he grabbed the shirt he was sharing with his sister, and he had to stop so she wouldn't tear the shirt and reveal their disguise.

"What about your other head?" the pimpled man asked sarcastically. "Doesn't he think it's nice to see me?"

"Of course," Amy said, "but we're in a bit of a hurry, so if you'll excuse us . . ."

"I don't excuse freaks," the man said. "There's no excuse for them. Why don't you wear a sack over one of your heads, so you look normal?"

"Grr!" Sonic said, baring her teeth at the man's knees.

"Please leave us alone, sir," Tails said. "Chabo is very protective of us, and might bite you if you get too close."

"I bet Chabo's no match for a bunch of fero- cious lions," the man said. "I can't wait until the show, and neither can my mother."

"That's right, dear," said a zebra, with even worse pimples who was standing nearby. She stepped forward to give the pimpled man a big kiss, and the Hedges noticed that pimples seemed to run in the family. "What time does the show start, freaks?"

"The show starts right now!"

The pimpled zebra and his mother turned around to see who had spoken, but the Hedges did not have to look to know it was Count Eggman who had made the announcement. The villain was standing at the entrance to the fortune- telling tent with a whip in his hand and a particularly nasty gleam in his eye, both of which the siblings recognized. The whip, of

course, was the one that Count Eggman used to encourage the lions to become ferocious, which the Hedges had seen the previous day, and the gleam was something they had seen more times than they could count. It was the sort of gleam someone might get in their eye when they were telling a joke, but when Eggman looked at people that way it usually meant that one of his schemes was succeeding brilliantly.

"The show starts right now!" he announced again to the people gathering around him. "I've just had my fortune told, so I've gotten what I wanted." Count Eggman pointed at the fortune- telling tent with his whip, and then turned around to point at the disguised Hedges as he grinned at the crowd. "Now, ladies and gen- tlemen, it's time to go to the lion pit so we can give the rest of you what you want."

R

Ten

" _I'm_ going to the pit right now!" cried a woman in the crowd. "I want to have a good view of the show!"

"So do I," said a man standing next to her. "There's no point in having lions eat somebody if you can't watch it happen."

"Well, we'd better hurry," said the man with pimples on his chin. "There's quite a crowd here."

The Hedge orphans looked around and saw that the pimpled man was speaking

the truth.

News of Caligari Carnival's latest

attraction must have spread far beyond the hinterlands, because there were many more visitors than yesterday, and there seemed to be more and more arriving every minute.

"I'll lead the way to the pit," announced Count Eggman. "After all, the lion show was my idea, so I should get to walk in front."

"It was your idea?" asked a woman the chil- dren recognized from their stay at Heimlich Hospital. She was wearing a gray suit, and chew- ing gum as she spoke into a microphone, and the siblings remembered that she was a reporter from _The Daily Punctilio._ "I'd love to write about it in the newspaper. What is your name?"

"Count Eggman!" Count Eggman said proudly.

"I can see the headline now: 'COUNT EGGMAN THINKS UP IDEA FOR LION SHOW,'" said the

reporter. "Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ see that!"

"Wait a minute," someone said. "I thought Count Eggman was murdered by those three children."

"That was Count Redman," replied the reporter. "I should know. I've been writing about the Hedges for _The Daily Punctilio._ Count Redman was murdered by those three Hedge children, who still remain at large. But I had to block Mr. Silver Poe from all our telephone lines. He rang me countless times insisting that they are innocent."

"Well, if anyone ever finds them," someone in the crowd said, "we'll throw _them_ into the lion pit."

"An excellent idea," Count Eggman replied, "but in the meantime, the lions will have a meal of one delicious freak. Follow me, everyone, for an afternoon of violence and sloppy eating!"

"Hooray!" cried several members of the crowd, as Eggman took a bow and began to lead everyone in the direction of the ruined roller coaster where the lions were waiting.

"Come with me, freaks," Count Eggman ordered, pointing at the Hedges. "My assis- tants are bringing the others. We want all you freaks assembled for the choosing ceremony."

"I will bring them, my Eggman," Madame Lulu said in her disguised accent, emerging from the

fortune-telling tent. When she saw the Hedges, her eyes widened, and she quickly held her hands behind her back. "You lead crowd to pit, please, and give interview to newspaper on way."

"Oh, yes," said the reporter. "I can see the headline now: 'EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH COUNT EGGMAN, WHO IS NOT COUNT REDMAN, WHO IS

DEAD.' Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punc- tilio_ see that!"

"It will be exciting for people to read about me," Count Eggman said. "All right, I'll walk with the reporter, Lulu. But hurry up with the freaks." "Yes, my Eggman," Madame Lulu said. "Come

with me, freaky peoples, please."

Lulu held out her hands for the Hedges to take, as if she were their mother walking them across the street, instead of a fake fortune- teller leading them to a pit of lions. The children could see that one of Madame Lulu's palms had an odd streak of dirt on it, while the other hand was closed in an odd, tight fist. The

children did not want to take those hands and walk toward the lion show, but there were so many people gathered around, eagerly expect- ing violence, that it seemed they had no other choice. Sonic grabbed ahold of Lulu's right hand, and Tails grabbed Lulu's left, and they walked together in an awkward knot in the direction of the ruined roller coaster.

"Bla—" Amy started to say, but then looked around the crowd and realized it would be foolish to use her real name. "I mean, Madame Lulu," he corrected himself, and then leaned across Tails to speak as quietly as he could. "Let's walk as slowly as we can. Maybe we can find an opportunity to sneak back to the tent and dismantle the lightning device."

Madame Lulu did not answer, but merely shook her head slightly to indicate that it was not a good time to speak of such matters.

"Fan belt," Sonic reminded her, as quietly as she could, but Madame Lulu just shook her head.

"You kept your promise, didn't you?" Amy murmured, scarcely above a whisper, but Madame Lulu stared ahead as if she had not heard. She nudged her older brother inside their shared shirt. "Tails," he said, scarcely daring to use her real name. "Ask Madame Lulu to walk more slowly."

Tails glanced briefly at Amy, and then turned his head to catch Sonic's eye. The younger Hedges looked back at their sister and watched her shake her head slightly, just as Madame Lulu had, and then look down, where she was holding the fortune-teller's hand. Between two of Tails' fingers, Amy and Sonic could see the tip of a small piece of rubber, which they recognized immediately. It was the part of Madame Lulu's lightning device that resembled a fan belt—the very thing Tails needed to turn the carts of the roller coaster into an invention that could carry the Hedges out of the hinterlands and up into the Mortmain Mountains. But instead of feeling hopeful as

they looked at this crucial item in Tails's hand, all three Hedges felt something quite a bit less pleasant.

If you have ever experienced something that feels strangely familiar, as if the exact same thing has happened to you before, then you are experiencing what the French call "déjà vu." Like most French expressions—"ennui," which is a fancy term for severe boredom, or "la petite mort," which describes a feeling that part of you has died—"déjà vu" refers to something that is usually not very pleasant, and it was not pleas- ant for the Hedge orphans to arrive at the lion pit and experience the queasy feeling of déjà vu. When the children had been staying at Heimlich Hospital, they had found themselves in an operating theater, surrounded by a large crowd that was very eager to see something vio- lent occur, such as an operation performed on someone. When the children were living in the town of V.F.D., they had found themselves in a field, surrounded by a large crowd eager to see

something violent occur, such as the burning of someone at the stake. And now, as Madame Lulu let go of their hands, the children looked at the enormous and strangely familiar crowd towering over them at the ruined roller coaster. Once again, there were people eager for some- thing violent to happen. Once again, the Hedges were afraid for their lives. And once again, it was all because of Count Eggman. The siblings looked past the cheering crowd at the two roller-coaster carts that Tails had adapted. All the invention needed was the fan belt, and the children could continue their search for one of the Hedge parents, but as Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked across the pit at the two small carts joined with ivy and altered to travel across the hinterlands, they felt the queasiness of déjà vu and wondered if there was another unhappy ending in store for them.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the most exciting afternoon of your entire lives!"

Count Eggman announced, and cracked his whip into the pit. The whip was just long enough to strike the restless lions, who roared obediently and gnashed their teeth in hunger. "These car- nivorous lions are ready to eat a freak," he said. "But which freak will it be?"

The crowd parted, and the hook-handed man emerged, leading the Hedges' co- workers in a line toward the edge of the pit where the Hedges stood. Scourge, Rosy, and Miles had evidently been told to dress in their freakish clothes rather than in the gifts Eudora had given them, and they gave the Hedges a small smile and stared nervously at the snarling lions. Once the children's co- workers had taken their places, Count Eggman's other comrades emerged from the crowd. Eudora Squalor was wearing a pinstripe suit and carry- ing a parasol, which is a small umbrella used for keeping the sun out of one's eyes, and she smiled at the crowd and sat down on a small chair brought by Eggman's bald associate, who was

also holding a long, flat piece of wood that he placed at the edge of the pit so it hung over the lions like a diving board over a swimming pool. Finally, the two white-faced women stepped forward, holding a small wooden box with a hole in the top.

"I'm so glad this is my last day in these clothes," Scourge murmured to the Hedges, gesturing to his ill-fitting coat. "Just think— soon I'll be a member of Count Eggman's troupe, and I'll never have to look like a freak again."

"Unless you're thrown to the lions," Amy couldn't help replying.

"Are you kidding?" Scourge whispered back. "If I'm the one chosen, I'm going to throw Madame Lulu into the pit, just like Eudora said." "Look closely at all these freaks," Count Eggman said, as several people in the audience tittered. "Observe Scourge's funny back. Think about how silly it is that Rosy can bend her- self into all sorts of strange positions. Giggle at the absurdity of Miles's ambidextrous arms and

legs. Snicker at Thomas and Alexia, the two- headed freak. And laugh so hard that you can scarcely breathe at Chabo the Wolf Baby."

The crowd erupted into laughter, pointing and laughing at the people they thought were funniest.

"Look at Chabo's ridiculous teeth!" cried a woman who had dyed her hair several colors at once. "She looks positively idiotic!"

"I think Miles is funnier!" replied her hus- band, who had dyed his hair to match. "I hope he's thrown into the pit. It'll be fun to see him try to defend himself with both hands, tails and feet."

"I hope it's the hook-handed freak!" said a woman standing in back of the Hedges.

"That will make it even more violent!"

"I'm _not_ a freak," the hook-handed man snarled impatiently. "I'm an employee of Count Eggman's."

"Oh, sorry," the woman replied. "In that case, I hope it's that zebra with pimples all over his chin."

"I'm a member of the audience!" the zebra cried. "I'm not a freak. I just have a few skin problems."

"Then what about that woman in that silly suit?" she asked. "Or that guy with only one eyebrow?"

"I'm Count Eggman's girlfriend," Eudora said, "and my suit is in, not silly."

"I don't care who's a freak and who isn't," said someone else in the crowd. "I just want to see the lions eat somebody."

"You will," Count Eggman promised. "We're going to have the choosing ceremony right now. The names of all the freaks have been written down on small scraps of paper and placed in the box that these two lovely ladies are holding."

The two white-faced women held up the wooden box and curtsied to the audience, while Eudora frowned at them. "I don't think they're par- ticularly lovely," she said, but few people heard her over the cheering of the crowd.

"I'm going to reach inside the box," Count

Eggman said, "draw out one piece of paper, and read the name of the freak out loud. Then that freak will walk down that wooden plank and jump into the pit, and we'll all watch as the lions eat him."

"Or her," Eudora said. She looked over at Madame Lulu, and then at the Hedges and their coworkers. Putting down her parasol for a moment, she raised both of her long-nailed hands and made a small, pushing motion to remind them of her scheme.

"Or her," Count Eggman said, looking curiously at Eudora's gesture. "Now, are there any ques- tions before we begin?"

"Why do you get to choose the name?" asked the pimpled man.

"Because this whole thing was my idea," Count Eggman said.

"I have a question," asked the woman with dyed hair. "Is this legal?"

"Oh, stop spoiling the fun," her husband said. "You wanted to come and watch people get

eaten by lions, and so I brought you. If you're going to ask a bunch of complicated questions you can go wait in the car."

"Please continue, Your Countship," said the reporter from _The Daily Punctilio._

"I will," Count Eggman said, and whipped the lions one more time before reaching into the wooden box. Giving the children and their coworkers a cruel smile, he moved his hand around inside the box for quite some time before at last drawing out a small piece of paper that had been folded many times. The crowd leaned forward to watch, and the Hedges strained to see over the heads of the adults around them. But Count Eggman did not unfold the piece of paper immediately. Instead he held it up as high as he could and gave the audience a large smile.

"I'm going to open the piece of paper very slowly," he announced, "to increase the sus- pense."

"How clever!" the reporter said, snapping

her gum in excitement. "I can see the headline now: 'COUNT EGGMAN INCREASES SUSPENSE.'"

"I learned how to amaze crowds by working extensively as a famous actor," Count Eggman said, smiling at the reporter and still holding up the piece of paper. "Be sure to write that down."

"I will," the reporter said breathlessly, and held her microphone closer to Eggman's mouth.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Count Eggman cried. "I am now unfolding the first fold in the piece of paper!"

"Oh boy!" cried several members of the audience. "Hooray for the first fold!"

"There are only five folds left," Eggman said. "Only five more folds, and we'll know which freak will be thrown to the lions."

"This is so exciting!" cried the man with dyed hair. "I might faint!"

"Just don't faint into the pit," his wife said. "I am now unfolding the second fold in the

piece of paper!" Count Eggman announced. "Now there are only four folds left!"

The lions roared impatiently, as if they were tired of all this nonsense with the piece of paper, but the audience cheered for the increased sus- pense and paid no attention to the beasts in the pit, gazing only at Count Eggman, who smiled and blew kisses to the carnival visitors. The Hedges, however, were no longer looking over the heads of the crowd to watch Eggman do his shtick, a phrase which here means "increase suspense by slowly unfolding a piece of paper printed with the name of someone who was supposed to jump into a pit of lions." They were taking advantage of the fact that no one was watching them, and stepped as close as they could to one another so they could talk without being over- heard.

"Do you think we could sneak around the pit to the roller-coaster carts?" Amy murmured to his sister.

"I think it's too crowded," Tails replied. "Do you think we could get the lions not to eat anyone?"

"I think they're too hungry," Amy said, squinting down at the growling beasts. "I read a book about large feline animals that said if they're hungry enough, they'll eat practically anything."

"Is there anything else you've read about lions that can help us?" Tails asked.

"I don't think so," Amy replied. "Is there anything else you can invent from that fan belt that can help us?"

"I don't think so," Tails replied, his voice faint with fear.

"Déjà vu!" Sonic called up to his siblings. he meant something along the lines of, "We must be able to think of something that can help us. We've escaped from bloodthirsty crowds before."

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "When we lived at Heimlich Hospital, we learned about stalling a crowd, when we postponed Eggman's scheme to operate on you."

"And when we lived at the Village of Fowl

Devotees," Tails said, "we learned about mob psychology, when we watched all the villagers get so upset that they couldn't think clearly. But what can we do with this crowd? What can we do now?"

"Both!" Sonic murmured, and then growled quickly in case anybody was listening.

"I unfolded the paper again!" Count Eggman crowed, and I probably do not have to tell you that he explained that there were only three folds left, or that the crowd cheered him once more, as if he had done something very brave or very noble. I probably do not have to tell you that he announced the remaining three folds as if they were very exciting events, and that the crowd cheered him each time, eagerly awaiting the violence and sloppy eating that would fol- low, and I probably don't even have to tell you what was written on the piece of paper, because if you have read this far in this wretched book then you are well acquainted with the Hedges orphans and you know what kind of freak-

ish luck they have. A person with normal luck would arrive at a carnival in comfortable circum- stances, such as in a double-decker bus or on the back of an elephant, and would probably have a pleasant time enjoying all of the things a carnival has to offer, and would feel happy and content at the end of their stay. But the Hedges had arrived at Caligari Carnival in the trunk of an automobile, and had been forced to put themselves in uncomfortable disguises, take part in a humiliating show, and place themselves in dangerous circumstances, and, as their freak- ish luck would have it, had not even found the information they were hoping to discover. So it probably will not be a surprise to you to learn that Scourge's name was not printed on the piece of paper in Count Eggman's hand, or Rosy's name, or the name of Miles, who was clasping his equally skilled hands together in nervous- ness as Eggman finally unfolded the paper com- pletely. It will not surprise you that when Count Eggman announced what the paper said, the eyes

of the entire crowd fell on the disguised chil- dren. But although you might not be surprised at Count Eggman's announcement, you might be surprised at the announcement that one of the siblings made immediately afterward.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Count Eggman an- nounced, "Thomas and Alexia, the two-headed freak, will be thrown to the lions today."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Tails Hedge announced, "we are thrilled to be chosen."

R

Eleven

 _There_ is another writer I know, who, like myself, is thought by a great deal of people to be dead. His name is William Shakespeare, and he has written four kinds of plays: comedies, romances, histories, and tragedies. Comedies, of course, are stories in which people tell jokes and trip over things, and romances are stories in which people fall in love and probably get married. Histories are retellings of things that actually happened,

like my history of the Hedge orphans, and tragedies are stories that usually begin fairly hap- pily and then steadily go downhill, until all of the characters are dead, wounded, or otherwise inconvenienced. It is usually not much fun to watch a tragedy, whether you are in the audience or one of the characters, and out of all Shake- speare's tragedies possibly the least fun exam- ple is _King_ _Lear,_ which tells the story of a king who goes mad while his daughters plot to murder one another and other people who are getting on their nerves. Toward the end of the play, one of William Shakespeare's characters remarks that "Humanity must perforce prey upon itself, like monsters of the deep," a sen- tence which here means "How sad it is that people end up hurting one another as if they were ferocious sea monsters," and when the character utters those unhappy words, the people in Shakespeare's audience often weep, or sigh, or remind themselves to see a comedy next time. I am sorry to report that the story of the

Hedge orphans has reached a point where it is appropriate to borrow Mr. Shakespeare's rather depressing sentence to describe how the Hedge orphans felt as they addressed the crowd gathered at the edge of the lion pit and tried to continue the story they found them- selves in without turning it into a tragedy, when it seemed that everyone was eager to hurt one another. Count Eggman and his henchmen were eager to see Tails and Amy jump to their car- nivorous deaths, so that Caligari Carnival would become more popular, and Madame Lulu would continue telling Eggman's fortune. Eudora Squalor was eager to see Madame Lulu thrown into the pit, so that she could get all of Eggman's attention, and the Hedges' coworkers were eager to help, so they could join Eggman's troupe. The reporter from _The Daily Punctilio_ and the other members of the audience were eager to see vio- lence and sloppy eating, so their visit to the car- nival would be worthwhile, and the lions were eager for a meal, after being whipped and

denied food for so long. It seemed that every member of humanity gathered at the roller coaster that afternoon was eager for something awful to occur, and the children felt awful as Tails and Amy stepped toward the plank and pretended they were just as eager.

"Thank you, Count Eggman, for choosing my other head and I as the first victims in the lion show," Amy said grandly in his high-pitched voice.

"Um, you're welcome," Count Eggman replied, looking a bit surprised. "Now, jump into the pit so we can watch the lions devour you."

"And do it quickly!" cried the man with pimples on his chin. "I'd like my carnival visit to be worthwhile!"

"Instead of watching a freak jump into the pit," Tails said, thinking quickly, "wouldn't you rather watch someone push a freak into the pit? That would be much more violent."

"Grr!" Sonic growled, in disguised agree- ment.

"That's a good point," one of the white- faced women said thoughtfully.

"Oh yes!" cried the woman with dyed hair. "I want to see the two-headed freak thrown to the lions!"

"I agree," Eudora said, glaring at the two older Hedges and then at Madame Lulu. "I'd like to see someone thrown into the pit."

The crowd cheered and applauded, and Sonic watched as her two siblings took a step toward the plank that hung over the pit where the lions were waiting hungrily. There are tire- some people who say that if you ever find your- self in a difficult situation, you should stop and figure out the right thing to do, but the three siblings already knew that the right thing to do was to dash over to the roller-coaster carts, hook up the fan belt, and escape into the hinterlands with Madame Lulu and her archival library, after calmly explaining to the gathered crowd that bloodshed was not a proper form of entertain- ment and that Count Eggman and his troupe ought

to be arrested that very instant. But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible, and then you must do something else. The three Hedges, standing in their disguises in the midst of a crowd eager for violence and sloppy eating, knew that they could not do the right thing, but they thought they could try to get the crowd as frantic as possible, so that they might slip away in the confusion. Tails, Amy, and Sonic weren't sure if using the techniques of stalling and mob psy- chology was the right thing to do, but the Hedge orphans could not think of anything else, and whether or not it was the right thing to do, their plan did seem to be working.

"This is absolutely thrilling!" exclaimed the reporter excitedly. "I can see the headline now: 'FREAKS PUSHED INTO LION PIT!' Wait until the

readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ see that!"

Sonic made the loudest growl he could, and pointed one of her tiny fingers at Count

Eggman. "What Chabo is trying to convey in her half-wolf language," Amy said, "is that Count Eggman ought to be the one to push us into the pit. After all, the lion show was his idea."

"That's true!" the pimpled man said. "Let's see Eggman throw Thomas and Alexia into the pit!" Count Eggman scowled at the Hedges, and then gave the crowd a smile that showed quite a few of his filthy teeth. "I am deeply honored to be asked," he said, bowing slightly, "but I'm afraid it would not be appropriate at this time." "Why not?" demanded the woman with

dyed hair.

Count Eggman paused for a moment, and then made a short, high-pitched sound as disguised as Sonic's growl. "I'm allergic to cats," he ex- plained. "You see? I'm sneezing already, and I'm not even on the plank."

"Your allergies didn't bother you when you were whipping the lions," Tails said.

"That's true," the hook-handed man said. "I didn't even know you had allergies, Eggman."

Count Eggman glared at his henchman. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, but the crowd didn't want to hear another one of the villain's speeches. "Push the freak in, Eggman!" someone shouted, and everyone cheered. Count Eggman frowned, but grabbed Amy's hand and led the two eldest Hedges onto the plank. But as the crowd roared around them and the lions roared be- neath them, the Hedges could see that Count Eggman was no more eager to get any closer

to the hungry lions than they were.

"Throwing people into pits isn't really my job," Count Eggman said nervously to the crowd. "I'm more of an actor."

"I have an idea," Eudora said suddenly, in a false sweet voice, "Madame Lulu, why don't you walk down that plank and throw your freak to its death?"

"This is not really my job either, please," Madame Lulu protested, looking at the children nervously. "I am fortune-teller, not freak- thrower."

"Don't be so modest, Madame Lulu," Count Eggman said with a nasty smile. "Even though the lion show was my idea, you're the most important person here at the carnival. Take my place on the plank, so we can see someone get pushed to their death."

"What a nice offer!" the reporter cried. "You're a very generous person, Count Eggman!"

"Let's see Madame Lulu throw Thomas and Alexia into the pit!" cried the pimpled man, and everyone cheered again. As mob psy- chology began to take hold, the crowd seemed to be as flexible as it was excited, and they gave the fortune-teller an enormous round of applause as she nervously took Count Eggman's place on the plank. The piece of wood teetered for a moment from the weight of so many people standing on it, and the older Hedges had to struggle to keep their balance. The crowd gasped in excitement, and then groaned as the two disguised children managed not to fall.

"This is so exciting!" squealed the reporter. "Maybe Lulu will fall in, too!"

"Yes," Eudora snarled. "Maybe she will."

"I don't care who falls in!" announced the pimpled man. Frustrated by the delay in vio- lence and sloppy eating, he tossed his cold bev- erage into the pit and splashed several lions, who roared in annoyance. "To me, a woman in a turban is just as freaky as a two-headed per- son. I'm not prejudiced!"

"Me neither!" agreed someone who was wearing a hat with the words CALIGARI CARNI- VAL printed on it. "I'm just eager for this show to finally get started! I hope Madame Lulu is brave enough to push that freak in!"

"It doesn't matter if she's brave enough," the bald man replied with a chuckle. "Everyone will do what they're expected to do. What other choice do they have?"

Tails and Amy had reached the end of the plank, and they tried as hard as they could to think of an answer to the bald man's question.

Below them was a roaring mass of hungry lions, who had gathered so closely together below the wooden board that they just seemed to be a mass of waving claws and open mouths, and around them was a roaring crowd of people who were watching them with eager smiles on their faces. The Hedges had succeeded in getting the crowd more and more frantic, but they still hadn't found an opportunity to slip away in the confusion, and now it seemed like that opportunity would never knock. With difficulty, Tails turned his head to face his sister, and Amy squinted back at her, and Sonic could see that her siblings' eyes were filled with tears.

"Our luck may have run out," she said. "Stop whispering to your heads!" Count

Eggman ordered in a terrible voice. "Madame Lulu, push them in this instant"

"We're increasing the suspense!" Amy cried back desperately.

"The suspense has been increased enough,"

replied the zebra with the pimpled chin im- patiently. "I'm getting tired of all this stalling!" "Me, too!" cried the woman with dyed hair. "Me, too!" cried someone else standing nearby. "Eggman, hit Lulu with the whip! That'll

get her to stop stalling!"

"Just one moment, please," Madame Lulu said, and took another step toward Tails and Amy. The plank teetered again, and the lions roared, hoping that their lunch was about to arrive. Madame Lulu looked at the elder Hedge frantically and the children saw her shoulders shrug slightly underneath her shimmering robe.

"Enough of this!" the hook-handed man said, and stepped forward impatiently. "I'll throw them in myself. I guess I'm the only per- son here brave enough to do it!"

"Oh, no," Scourge said. "I'm brave enough, too, and so are Rosy and Miles."

"Freaks who are brave?" the hook-handed man sneered. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"We _are_ brave," Scourge insisted. "Count Eggman, let us prove it to you, and then you can employ us!"

"Employ you?" Count Eggman asked with a frown.

"What a wonderful idea!" Eudora exclaimed, as if the idea had not been hers.

"Yes," Rosy said. "We'd like to find some- thing else to do, and this seems like a wonder- ful opportunity."

Miles stepped forward and held out both his hands. "I know I'm a freak," he said to Eggman, "but I think I could be just as useful as the hook-handed man, or your bald associate."

"What?" the bald man snapped. "A freak like you, as useful as me? Don't be ridiculous!" "I can be useful," Miles insisted. "You just

watch."

"Stop all this bickering!" the pimpled man said crankily. "I didn't visit this carnival to hear people argue about their work problems."

"You're distracting me and my other head,"

Tails said in her low, disguised voice. "Let's get off this plank and we can all discuss this matter calmly."

"I don't want to discuss things calmly!" cried the woman with dyed hair. "I can do that at home!"

"Yes!" agreed the reporter from _The_ _Daily_ _Punctilio._ "'PEOPLE DISCUSS THINGS CALMLY' is a

boring headline! Somebody throw somebody else into the lion pit, and we'll all get what we want!" "Madame Lulu will do it, please!" Madame

Lulu announced in a booming voice, and grabbed Tails and Amy by the shirt. The Hedges looked up at her and saw a tear appear in one of her eyes, and she leaned down to speak to them. "I'm sorry, Hedges," she murmured quietly, without a trace of accent, and reached down to Tails' hand and took the fan belt away from him.

Sonic was so upset that she forgot to growl. "Trenceth!" she shrieked, which meant some- thing along the lines of, "You ought to be

ashamed of yourself!" but if the fake fortune- teller was ashamed of herself she did not behave accordingly. "Madame Lulu always says you must always give people what they want," she said grandly in her disguised voice. "She will do the throwing, please, and she will do it now!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Scourge said, stepping forward eagerly. "I'll do it!"

"You're the one being ridiculous!" Rosy said, contorting her body toward Lulu. "I'll do it!" "No, I'll do it!" Miles cried. "With both

hands!"

" _I'll_ do it!" the bald man cried, blocking Miles's way. "I don't want a freak like you for a coworker!"

"I'll do it!" cried the hook-handed man. "I'll do it!" cried one of the white-faced

women.

"I'll do it!" cried the other one.

"I'll get someone else to do it!" cried Eudora Squalor.

Count Eggman unwound his whip and flicked

it over the heads of the crowd with a mighty _snap!_ that made everyone cower, a word which here means "cringe and duck and hope not to get whipped." _"Silence!"_ he commanded in a ter- rible roar. "All of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're arguing like a bunch of chil- dren! I want to see those lions devouring some- one this very instant, and whoever has the courage to carry out my orders will get a special reward!"

This speech, of course, was just the latest example of Count Eggman's tedious philosophy concerning a stubborn mule moving in the proper direction if there is a carrot dangling in front of it, but the offer of a special reward finally got the crowd as frantic as possible. In a moment, the crowd of carnival visitors had become a mob of volunteers, all of whom swarmed eagerly forward to finally throw some- one to the lions. Scourge lunged forward to push Madame Lulu, but bumped into the box that the white-faced women were holding, and the

three of them fell in a heap at the edge of the pit. The hook-handed man lunged forward to grab Tails and Amy, but his hook caught in the cord of the reporter's microphone and became hope- lessly entangled. Rosy contorted her arms so as to grab Lulu's ankles, but grabbed Eudora Squalor's ankle by accident, and got her hands all twisted around one of Eudora's fashionable shoes. The woman with dyed hair decided she might give it a try, and leaned forward to push the elder Hedges, but they stepped to the side and the woman fell into her husband, who accidentally slapped the zebra with pimples on his chin, and the three carnival visitors began arguing loudly. Quite a few people who were standing nearby decided to get in on the argument, and gathered around to shout in each other's faces. Within moments of Count Eggman's announcement, the Hedges were in the middle of a furious mass of humanity, who were standing over the children, yelling and pushing and preying on them- selves like monsters of the deep, while the lions

roared furiously in the pit below.

But then the siblings heard another sound in the pit, a horrible crunching and ripping sound that was far worse than the roaring of beasts. The crowd stopped arguing to see what was making the noise, but the Hedges were not interested in seeing anything more, and stepped back from the terrible sound, and huddled against one another with their eyes shut as tightly as possible. Even in this position, how- ever, the children could hear the terrible, terrible sounds from the pit, even over the laughter and cheers of the carnival visitors as they crowded together at the edge of the pit to see what was happening, and so the three young- sters turned away from the commotion, and, with their eyes still closed, slipped away in the confusion, stumbling through all of the cheer- ing people until at last they were in the clear, a phrase which here means "far enough away from the roller coaster that they could no longer see or hear what was going on."

But the Hedge orphans, of course, could still imagine what was happening, as I can imagine it, even though I was not there that afternoon and have only read descriptions of what occurred down in the pit. The article in _The_ _Daily Punctilio_ says that it was Madame Lulu who fell first, but newspaper articles are often inaccurate, so it is impossible to say if this is actually true. Perhaps she did fall first, and the bald man fell after her, or perhaps Lulu managed to push the bald man in as she tried to escape his grasp, only to slip and join him in the pit just moments later. Or perhaps these two people were still struggling when the plank teetered one more time, and the lions reached both of them at the same time. It is likely that I will never know, just as I will probably never know the location of the fan belt, no matter how many times I return to Caligari Carnival to search for it. At first I thought that Madame Lulu dropped the strip of rubber on the ground near the pit, but I have searched the entire area

with a shovel and a flashlight and found no sign of it, and none of the carnival visitors whose houses I have searched seem to have taken it home for a souvenir. Then I thought that per- haps the fan belt was thrown into the air dur- ing all the commotion, and perhaps landed up in the tracks of the roller coaster, but I have climbed over every inch without success. And there is, of course, the possibility that it has burned away, but lightning devices are gener- ally made of a certain type of rubber that is dif- ficult to burn, so that possibility seems remote. And so I must admit that I do not know for cer- tain where the fan belt is, and, like knowing whether it was the bald man or Madame Lulu who fell first, that this may be information that will never come to me. But I can imagine that the small strip of rubber ended up in the same place as the woman who removed it from the lightning device and gave it to the Hedge orphans, only to snatch it back at the last minute, and in the same place as the associate

of Eggman's who was so eager to get a special reward. If I close my eyes, as the Hedge orphans closed their eyes as they stumbled away from this unfortunate event, I can imag- ine that the fan belt, like the bald man and my former associate Blaze, fell into the pit that Eggman and his henchmen had dug, and ended up in the belly of the beast.

R

Twelve

 _When_ the Hedge orphans finally opened their eyes, they found that they had stumbled to the entrance of

Madame Lulu's fortune-telling tent, with the initials V.F.D. still staring out at them. Most of the carnival visitors had walked over to the lion pit to see the show, so the siblings were alone in the fading afternoon, and once again there was no one watching over them as they stood in front of the tent, trembling and crying quietly. The last time they had stood for so long at the tent's entrance, the decoration had seemed to change before their very eyes until they saw that it was not a painting of an eye, but

the insignia of an organization that might help them. Now they stood and stared again, hoping that something would change before their very eyes until they saw what it was that they could do. But nothing seemed to change no matter how hard they looked. The carnival remained silent, and the afternoon continued to creep toward evening, and the insignia on the tent simply stared back at the weeping Hedges. "I wonder where the fan belt is," Tails said finally. Her voice was faint and almost hoarse, but her tears had stopped at last. "I wonder if it fell to the ground, or was thrown onto the tracks

of the roller coaster, or if it ended up—"

"How can you think about a fan belt at a time like this?" Amy asked, although her voice was not angry. Like his sister, he was still trembling inside the shirt they shared, and felt very tired, as is often the case after a long cry.

"I don't want to think about anything else," Tails said. "I don't want to think about Madame Lulu and the lions, and I don't want to think

about Count Eggman and the crowd, and I don't want to think about whether or not we did the right thing."

"Right," Sonic said gently.

"I agree," Amy said. "We did the best we could."

"I'm not so sure," Tails replied. "I had the fan belt in my hand. It was all we needed to fin- ish the invention and escape from this awful place."

"You couldn't finish the invention," Amy said. "We were surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted to see someone thrown to the lions. It's not our fault that she fell in instead."

"And bald," Sonic added.

"But we made the crowd even more fran- tic," Tails said. "First we stalled the show, and then we used mob psychology to get them excited about throwing somebody into the pit." "Count Eggman is the one who thought up this whole ghastly scheme," Amy said. "What hap-

pened to Madame Lulu is his fault, not ours."

"We promised to take her with us," Tails insisted. "Madame Lulu kept her promise and didn't tell Count Eggman who we were, but we didn't keep ours."

"We tried," Amy said. "We tried to keep ours."

"Trying's not good enough," Tails said. "Are we going to _try_ to find one of our parents? Are we going to _try_ to defeat Count Eggman?"

"Yes," Sonic said firmly, and wrapped her arms around Tails's leg. The eldest Hedge looked down at her sister and her eyes filled with tears.

"Why are we here?" she asked. "We thought we could put on disguises and get ourselves out of trouble, but we're worse off than when we began. We don't know what V.F.D. stands for. We don't know where the Snicket file is. And we don't know if one of our parents is really alive."

"There are some things we might not know," Amy said, "but that doesn't mean we should

give up. We can find out what we need to know. We can find out anything."

Tails smiled through her tears. "You sound like a researcher," she said.

The middle Hedge reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. "I _am_ a re- searcher," he said, and stepped toward the entrance to the tent. "Let's get to work."

"Ghede!" Sonic said, which meant some- thing like, "I almost forgot about the archival library!" and she followed her siblings through the flap in the tent.

As soon as the Hedge orphans stepped inside, they saw that Madame Lulu had made quite a few preparations for her escape with the children, and it made them very sad to think that she would never return to the fortune- telling tent to collect the things she had waiting for her. Her disguise kit was all packed up again, and waiting by the door so she could take it with her. There was a cardboard box standing next to the cupboard, filled with food that could be

eaten on the journey. And laid out on the table, next to Madame Lulu's replacement crystal ball and various parts of the lightning device she had dismantled, was a large piece of paper that was badly torn and looked very old, but the Hedges saw at once that it could help them.

"It's a map," Tails said. "It's a map of the Mortmain Mountains. She must have had it among her papers."

Amy put his glasses on and peered at it closely. "Those mountains must be very cold this time of year," he said. "I didn't realize the altitude was so high."

"Never mind the altitude," Tails said. "Can you find the headquarters Lulu was talk- ing about?"

"Let's see," Amy said. "There's a star next to Plath Pass, but the key says that a star indi- cates a campground."

"Key?" Sonic asked.

"This chart in the corner of the map is called

a key," Amy explained. "You see? The map- maker explains what each symbol means, so the map doesn't get too cluttered."

"There's a black rectangle there in the Richter Range," she said. "See? Over in the east?"

"A black rectangle indicates hibernation grounds," Amy said. "There must be quite a few bears in the Mortmain Mountains. Look, there are five hibernation grounds near Silent Springs, and a large cluster of them at the top of Paucity Peak."

"And here," Tails said, "in the Valley of Four Drafts, where it looks like Madame Lulu spilled coffee."

"Valley of Four Drafts!" Amy said. "V.F.D.!" Sonic cried.

The Hedges peered together at the spot on the map. The Valley of Four Drafts was high up in the Mortmain Mountains, where it would be very cold. The Stricken Stream began there, and wound its way down to the sea in sagging curves through the hinterlands, and the map

showed many, many hibernation grounds along the way. There was a small brown stain in the center of the valley, where four gaps in the moun- tains came together and where Lulu had prob- ably spilled coffee, but there were no markings for a headquarters or for anything else.

"Do you think it means something?" Tails asked. "Or is it just a coincidence, like all the

V.F.D.s we've come across?"

"I thought the V in V.F.D. stood for 'volun- teer,'" Amy said. "That's what we found writ- ten on a page of the Quagmire notebooks, and it's what Chocolate Snicket said."

"Winnow?" Sonic asked, which meant "But where else could the headquarters be? There's no other marking on the map."

"Well, if V.F.D. is a secret organization," Tails said, "they might not put their head- quarters on a map."

"Or it could be marked secretly," Amy said, and leaned in to take a good look at the stain. "Maybe this isn't just a stain," he said. "Maybe

it's a secret marking. Maybe Madame Lulu put some coffee here on purpose, so she could find the headquarters, but nobody else could."

"I guess we'll have to travel there," Tails said with a sigh, "and find out."

"How are we going to travel there?" Amy said. "We don't know where the fan belt is."

"We might be missing some parts," Tails replied, "but that doesn't mean we should give up. I can build something else."

"You sound like an inventor," he said.

Tails smiled, and took her hair ribbon out of her pocket. "I _am_ an inventor," she said. "I'll look around here and see if there's anything else we can use. Amy, you look under the table at the archival library."

"We'd better get out of the clothes we're sharing," Amy said, "or we can't do two things at once."

"Ingredi," Sonic said, which meant "Mean- while, I'll look through all this food and make sure we have everything we need to prepare meals."

"Good idea," Tails said. "We'd better hurry before someone finds us."

"There you are!" called a voice from the entrance to the tent, and the Hedges jumped. Tails hurriedly stuffed her ribbon back into her pocket, and Amy removed his glasses, so they could turn around without revealing their disguise. Count Eggman and Eudora Squalor were standing together in the doorway of the tent, with their arms around one another, looking tired but happy, as if they were two parents coming home after a long day at work, instead of a vicious villain and his scheming girlfriend coming into a fortune- teller's tent after an afternoon of violence. Eudora Squalor was clutching a small bouquet of ivy her boyfriend had apparently given her, and Count Eggman was holding a flaming torch, which was shining as brightly as his wicked eyes.

"I've been looking everywhere for you two," he said. "What are you doing in here?"

"We decided to let all of you freaks join us," Eudora said, "even though you weren't very courageous at the lions' pit."

"That's very kind of you to offer," Tails said quickly, "but you don't want cowards like us in your troupe."

"Sure we do," Count Eggman said, with a nasty smile. "We keep losing assistants, and it's always good to have a few to spare. I even asked the woman who runs the gift caravan to join us, but she was too worried about her precious figurines to know that opportunity was knocking."

"Besides," Eudora said, stroking Eggman's hair, "you don't really have any choice. We're going to burn this carnival down to eliminate all the evidence that we've been here. Most of the tents are already on fire, and the carnival visi- tors and carnival workers are running for their lives. If you don't join us, where can you pos- sibly go?"

The Hedges looked at one another in dismay. "I guess you're right," Amy said.

"Of course we're right," Eudora said. "Now get out of here and help us pack up the trunk." "Wait a minute," Count Eggman said, and strode over to the table. "What's this?" he

demanded. "It looks like a map."

"It _is_ a map," Amy admitted with a sigh, wishing he had hidden it in his pockets. "A map of the Mortmain Mountains."

"The Mortmain Mountains?" Count Eggman said, examining the map eagerly. "Why, that's where we're heading! Lulu said that if there was a parent alive, they'd be hiding up there! Does the map show any headquarters on it?"

"I think these black rectangles indicate headquarters," Eudora said, peering over Eggman's shoulder. "I'm pretty good at reading maps."

"No, they represent campgrounds," Eggman said, looking at the key, but then his face broke out into a smile. "Wait a minute," he said, and pointed to the stain the Hedges had been examining. "I haven't seen one of these in a long time," he said, stroking his scraggly chin.

"A small brown stain?" Eudora asked. "You saw that this morning."

"This is a coded stain," Count Eggman ex- plained. "I was taught to use this on maps when I was a little boy. It's to mark a secret location without anyone else noticing."

"Except a smashing genius," Eudora said. "I guess we're heading for the Valley of Four Drafts."

"V.F.D.," Count Eggman said, and giggled. "That's appropriate. Well, let's go. Is there any- thing else useful in here?"

The Hedges looked quickly at the table, where the archival library was hidden. Under- neath the black tablecloth decorated with silver stars was all the crucial information Madame Lulu had gathered to give her visitors what they wanted. The children knew that all sorts of important secrets could be found in the gather- ing of paper, and they shuddered to think what Count Eggman would do if he discovered all those secrets.

"No," Amy said finally. "Nothing else useful."

Count Eggman frowned, and kneeled down so that his face was right next to Amy's. Even without his glasses, the middle Hedge could see that Eggman had not washed his one eyebrow for quite some time, and could smell his breath as he spoke. "I think you're lying to me," the villain said, and waved the lit torch in Amy's face.

"My other head is telling the truth," Tails said.

"Then what is that food doing there?" Count Eggman demanded, pointing at the card- board box. "Don't you think food would be use- ful for a long journey?"

The Hedges sighed in relief. "Grr!" Sonic growled.

"Chabo compliments you on your clever- ness," Amy said, "and so do we. We hadn't noticed that box."

"That's why I'm the boss," Count Eggman said,

"because I'm smart and I have good eyesight." He laughed nastily, and put the torch in Amy's hand. "Now then," he said, "I want you to light this tent on fire, and then bring the box of food over to the car. Chabo, come with me. I'm sure I'll find something for you to sink your teeth into."

"Grr," Sonic said doubtfully.

"Chabo would prefer to stay with us," Tails said.

"I couldn't care less what Chabo would pre- fer," Eggman snarled, and picked up the youngest Hedge as if she were a watermelon. "Now get busy."

Count Eggman and Eudora Squalor walked out of the tent with Chabo, leaving the elder Hedges alone with the flaming torch.

"We'd better pick up the box first," Amy said, "and light the tent from the outside. Otherwise we'll be surrounded by flames in no time."

"Are we really going to follow Eggman's orders?"

Tails asked, looking at the table again. "The archival library might have the answers to all our questions."

"I don't think we have a choice," Amy said. "Eggman is burning down the whole carnival, and riding with him is our only chance to get to the Mortmain Mountains. You don't have time to invent something, and I don't have time to look through the library."

"We could find one of the other carnival employees," Tails said, "and ask them if they would help us."

"Everyone either thinks that we're freaks or murderers," Amy said. "Sometimes even I think so."

"If we join Count Eggman," Tails said, "we might become even more freakish and mur- derous."

"But if we don't join him," Amy asked, "where can we possibly go?"

"I don't know," Tails said sadly, "but this can't be the right thing to do, can it?"

"Maybe it's harum-scarum," Amy said, "like Blaze said."

"Maybe it is," Tails said, and walked awk- wardly with her brother to the cardboard box and picked it up. Amy held the torch, and the two Hedges walked out of the fortune- telling tent for the last time.

When they first stepped out, still wearing the same pair of pants, it seemed as if night had already fallen, although the air was black and not the blue of the famous hinterlands sunsets. But then Tails and Amy realized that the air was filling with smoke. Looking around, they saw that many of the tents and caravans were already on fire, as Count Eggman had said, and the flames were billowing black smoke up into the sky. Around them, the last of the carnival visi- tors were rushing to escape from Eggman's treach- ery, and in the distance the siblings could hear the panicked roars of the lions, who were still trapped in the pit.

"This isn't the kind of violence I like!"

shouted the man with pimples on his face, coughing in the smoke as he ran by. "I prefer it when other people are in danger!"

"Me, too!" said the reporter from _The_ _Daily_ _Punctilio,_ running alongside him. "Eggman told me that the Hedges are responsible! I can see the headline now: 'HEDGES CONTINUE THEIR LIVES OF CRIME!'"

"What kind of children would do such a ter- rible thing?" asked the man with the pimpled chin, but Tails and Amy could not hear the answer over the voice of Count Eggman.

"Hurry up, you two-headed freak!" he called from around the corner. "If you don't come here right this minute, we're leaving with- out you!"

"Grr!" Sonic growled frantically, and at the sound of their baby sister's disguised voice, the older Hedges threw the lit torch into the fortune-telling tent, and ran toward Eggman's voice without looking back, although it wouldn't have mattered if they had looked. There was so much

fire and smoke around them one more burning tent wouldn't have made the carnival look any different. The only difference was that they would have known that part of the fire was of their own devising, a phrase which here means "because of their part in Count Eggman's treachery," and although neither Tails nor Amy saw this with their own eyes, they knew it in their hearts, and I doubt that they would ever forget it.

When the older Hedges rounded the cor- ner, they saw that all of Eggman's other henchmen were already waiting at the long, black auto- mobile, which was parked in front of the freaks' caravan. Scourge, Rosy, and Miles were crowded in the back seat with the two white-faced women, while Eudora Squalor sat in the front, with Sonic on her lap. The hook-handed man took the box out of the older Hedges' hands and threw it into the trunk while Count Eggman pointed to the caravan with his whip, which looked much shorter, and rough around the edges.

"You two will ride in that," he said. "We're

going to attach it to the automobile and pull you along with us."

"Isn't there room in the car?" Tails asked nervously.

"Don't be ridiculous," the hook-handed man said with a sneer. "It's too crowded. Good thing Rosy is a contortionist, so she can curl into a ball at our feet."

"Chabo already gnawed my whip down so it could be used as a connecting rope," Count Eggman said. "I'll just tie the caravan to the car with a double slipknot, and then we'll ride off into the sunset."

"Excuse me," Tails said, "but I know a knot called the Devil's Tongue that I think will hold better."

"And if I remember the map correctly," Amy said, "we should ride east until we find Stricken Stream, so we should drive _that_ way, away from the sunset."

"Yes, yes, yes," Count Eggman said quickly. "That's what I meant. Tie it yourself if you

want. I'll go start the engine."

Eggman tossed the rope to Amy while the hook-handed man reached into the trunk again, and brought out a pair of walkie-talkies the chil- dren remembered from when they were living in Eggman's home. "Take one of these," he said, putting one in Tails's hand, "so we can contact you if we need to tell you something."

"Hurry up," Count Eggman snapped, taking the other walkie-talkie. "The air is filling with smoke."

The villain and his henchmen got into the automobile, and Tails and Amy knelt down to attach the caravan. "I can't believe I'm using this knot to help Count Eggman," she said. "It feels like I'm using my inventing skills to participate in something wicked."

"We're all participating," Amy said glumly. "Sonic used her teeth to turn that whip into a connecting rope, and I used my map skills to tell Eggman which direction to head."

"At least we'll get there, too," Tails said,

"and maybe one of our parents will be waiting for us. There. The knot's tied. Let's get in the caravan."

"I wish we were riding with Sonic," Amy said.

"We are," Tails said. "We're not getting to the Mortmain Mountains the way we want, but we're getting there, and that's what counts."

"I hope so," Amy said, and he and his sis- ter stepped into the freaks' caravan and shut the door. Count Eggman started the engine of the car, and the caravan began to rock gently back and forth as the automobile pulled them away from the carnival. The hammocks swayed above the two siblings, and the rack of clothing creaked beside them, but the knot Tails had tied held fast, and the two vehicles began traveling in the direction Amy had pointed.

"We might as well get comfortable," Tails said. "We'll be traveling a long time."

"All night at least," Amy said, "and prob- ably most of the next day. I hope they'll stop

and share the food."

"Maybe we can make some hot chocolate later," Tails said.

"With cinnamon," Amy said, smiling as he thought of Sonic's recipe. "But what should we do in the meantime?"

Tails sighed, and he and his sister sat down on a chair so she could lay her head on the table, which was shaking slightly as the caravan headed out into the hinterlands. The eldest Hedge put down the walkie-talkie next to the set of dominoes. "Let's just sit," she said, "and think."

Amy nodded in agreement, and the two Hedges sat and thought for the rest of the afternoon, as the automobile pulled them far- ther and farther away from the burning carni- val. Tails tried to imagine what the V.F.D. headquarters might look like, and hoped that one of their parents would be there. Amy tried to imagine what Eggman and his troupe were talk- ing about, and hoped that Sonic was not too

frightened. And both the older Hedges thought about all that had happened at Caligari Carnival, and wondered whether or not they had done the right things. They had disguised themselves in order to find the answers to their questions, and now the answers were burning up under Madame Lulu's table, as her archival library went up in smoke. They had encouraged their coworkers to find employment someplace where they wouldn't be considered freaks, and now they had joined Count Eggman's evil troupe. And they had promised Madame Lulu that they would take her with them, so she could lead them to V.F.D. and become a noble person again, but she had fallen into the lion pit and become nothing but a meal. Tails and Amy thought about all of the trouble they were in, and wondered if it was all due to simple misfor- tune, or if some of it was of their own devising. These were not the most pleasant thoughts in the world, but it still felt good to sit and think about them, instead of hiding and lying and

frantically thinking up plans. It was peaceful to sit and think in the freaks' caravan, even when the caravan tilted slightly as they reached the beginning of the Mortmain Mountains and began to head uphill. It was so peaceful to sit and think that both Tails and Amy felt as if they were waking up from a long sleep when Count Eggman's voice came out of the walkie- talkie.

"Are you there?" Eggman asked. "Press the red button and speak to me!"

Tails rubbed her eyes, picked up the walkie-talkie, and held it so both she and her brother could hear. "We're here," she said.

"Good," Count Eggman replied, "because I wanted to tell you that I learned something else from Madame Lulu."

"What did you learn?" Amy asked.

There was a pause, and the two children could hear cruel peals of laughter coming from the small device in Tails's hand. "I learned that you are the Hedges!" Count Eggman cried in

triumph. "I learned that you three brats fol- lowed me here and tricked me with sneaky dis- guises. But I'm too clever for you!"

Eggman began to laugh again, but over his laugh- ter the two siblings could hear another sound that made them feel as shaky as the caravan. It was Sonic, and she was whimpering in fear.

"Don't hurt her!" Tails cried. "Don't you dare hurt her!"

"Hurt her?" Count Eggman snarled. "Why, I wouldn't dream of hurting her! After all, I need one orphan to steal the fortune. First I'm going to make sure both of your parents are dead, and then I'm going to use Sonic to become very, very rich! No, I wouldn't worry about this buck- toothed twerp—not yet. If I were you, I'd worry about yourselves! Say bye-bye to your sister, Hedgerats!"

"But we're tied together," Amy said. "We hitched our caravan to you."

"Look out the window," Count Eggman said, and hung up the walkie-talkie. Tails and Amy

looked at one another, and then staggered to their feet and moved the curtain away from the win- dow. The curtain parted as if they were watch- ing a play, and if I were you I would pretend that this is a play, instead of a book—perhaps a tragedy, written by William Shakespeare—and that you are leaving the theater early to go home and hide under a sofa, because you will recall that there was a certain expression that, I'm sorry to say, must be used three times before this story is over, and it is in the thirteenth chap- ter when this expression will be used for the third time. The chapter is very short, because the end of this story happened so quickly that it does not take many words to describe, but the chapter does contain the third occasion requir- ing the expression "the belly of the beast," and you would be wise to leave before the chapter begins, because that time didn't count.

R

Thirteen

 _With_ the curtain parted, Tails and Amy looked out the window and gasped at what they saw. In front of them was Count Eggman's long, black automobile, winding its crooked way up the

road toward the peaks of the Mortmain Mountains, with the freaks' caravan

tied to the bumper. They could not see their baby sister, who

was trapped in the front seat with Eggman and his villainous girlfriend, but they could imagine how frightened and desperate she was. But the older Hedges also saw something that made them frightened and desperate, and it was something they had never thought to imagine.

Scourge was leaning out of the back window of the automobile, his hump hidden in the over- sized coat Eudora Squalor had given him as a present, and he was holding tight to Rosy's ankles. The contortionist had twisted her body around to the back of the car so that her head was lying on the middle of the trunk, between two of the bullet holes that had provided air for the Hedges on their way to Caligari Carnival. Like her coworker, Rosy was also holding tight to someone's ankles—the ambi- dextrous ankles of Miles, so that all three of Madame Lulu's former employees were in a sort of human chain. At the end of the chain were Miles's hands, which were gripping a long, rusty knife. Miles looked up at Tails and Amy, gave

them a triumphant grin, and brought the knife down as hard as he could on the knot Tails had tied.

The Devil's Tongue is a very strong knot, and normally it would take a while for a knife to saw through it, even if it was very sharp, but the equal strength in Miles's two arms meant that the knife moved with a freakish power, instead of normally, and in an instant the knot was split in two.

" _No!"_ Tails yelled.

" _Sonic!"_ Amy screamed.

With the caravan unhitched, the two vehi- cles began going in opposite directions. Count Eggman's car continued to wind its way up the mountain, but without anything pulling it, the caravan began to roll back down, the way a grapefruit will roll down a flight of stairs if you let it go, and there was no way for Tails or Amy to steer or stop the caravan from the inside. The Hedges screamed again, all three of them, Tails and Amy alone in the

rattling caravan, and Sonic in the car full of vil- lains, as the two vehicles slipped further and further away from each other, but even though Count Eggman was getting closer and closer to what he wanted and the older Hedges were get- ting further and further away, it seemed to the children that all three siblings were ending up at the same place. Even as Count Eggman's auto- mobile slipped out of view, and the caravan began to slip on the bumpy road, it seemed to the Hedge orphans that they were all slip- ping into the belly of the beast, and that time, I'm sorry to say, counted very, very much.


	11. The Slippery Slope

*** A Series Of Unfortunate Events * BOOK the Tenth**

 **THE** **SLIPPERY** **SLOPE** **by** **LEMONY** **SNICKET**

 **to Cream**

 **When we first met you were pretty and I was lonely.**

 **Now I am pretty lonely**

CHAPTER

 **One**

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled," describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is now dead.

Like a dead poet, this book can be said to be on the road less traveled, because it begins with the three Hedge children on a path leading through the Mortmain Mountains, which is not a popular destination for travelers, and it ends in the churning waters of the Stricken Stream, which few travelers even go near. But this book is also on the road less traveled, because unlike books most people prefer, which provide comforting and entertaining tales about charming people and talking animals, the tale you are reading now is nothing but distressing and unnerving, and the people unfortunate enough to be in the story are far more desperate and frantic than charming, and I would prefer to not speak about the animals at all. For that reason, I can no more suggest the reading of this woeful book than I can recommend wandering around the woods by yourself, because like the road less traveled, this book is likely to make you feel lonely, miserable, and in need of help. The Hedge orphans, however, had no choice but to be on the road less traveled. Tails and Amy, the two elder Hedges, were in a caravan, traveling very quickly along the high mountain path.

Neither Tails, who was fourteen, nor Amy, who had recently turned thirteen, had ever thought they would find themselves on this road, except perhaps with their parents on a family vacation. But

the Hedge parents were nowhere to be found after a terrible fire destroyed their home – although the children had reason to believe that one parent may not have died in the blaze after all – and the caravan was not heading up the Mortmain Mountains, toward a secret headquarters the siblings had heard about and were hoping to find. The caravan was heading down the Mortmain Mountains, very quickly, with no way to control or stop its journey, so Tails and Amy felt more like fish in a stormy sea than travelers on a vacation.

But Sonic Hedge was in a situation that could be said to be even more desperate. Sonic was the youngest Hedge, still learning to speak in a way that everyone could understand, so he scarcely had words for how frightened he was. Sonic was traveling uphill, toward the headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains, in an automobile that was working perfectly, but the driver of the automobile was a man who was reason enough for being terrified.

Some people called this man wicked. Some called him facinorous, which is a fancy word for "wicked." But everyone called him Count Eggman, unless he was wearing one of his ridiculous disguises and making people call him a false name. Count Eggman was an actor, but he had largely abandoned his theatrical career to try to steal the enormous fortune the Hedge parents had left behind. Eggman's schemes to get the fortune had been mean-spirited and particularly complicated, but nevertheless he had managed to attract a girlfriend, a villainous and stylish woman named Eudora Squalor, who was sitting next to Count Eggman in the car, cackling nastily and clutching Sonic on her lap. Also in the car were several employees of Eggman's, including a man with hooks instead of hands, two women who liked to wear white powder all over their faces, and three new comrades Eggman had recently recruited at Caligari Carnival. The Hedge children had been at the carnival, too, wearing disguises of their own, and had pretended to join Count Eggman in his treachery, but the villain had seen through their ruse, a phrase which here means "realized who they really were, and cut the knot attaching

the caravan to the car, leaving Sonic in Eggman's clutches and his siblings tumbling toward their doom." Sonic sat in the car and felt Eudora's long fingernails scratch his shoulders, and worried about what would happen to him and what was happening to his older siblings, as he heard their screams getting fainter and fainter as the car drove farther and farther away.

"We have to stop this caravan!" Amy screamed. Hurriedly, she put on her glasses, as if by improving her vision he might improve the situation. But even in perfect focus, she could see their predicament was dire. The caravan had served as a home for several performers at the carnival's House of Freaks before they defected – a word which here means "joined Count Eggman's band of revolting comrades"

– and now the contents of this tiny home were rattling and crashing with each bump in the road. Amy ducked to avoid a roasting pan, which Scourge the hunchback had used to prepare meals and which had toppled off a shelf in the commotion. She lifted his feet from the floor as a pack of cards skittered by – a set that Rosy the contortionist had liked to play with. And she squinted above her as a hammock swung violently overhead. An ambidextrous person named Miles used to sleep in that hammock until he had joined Eggman's troupe, along with Scourge and Rosy, and now it seemed like it might fall at any moment and trap the Hedges beneath it.

The only comforting thing that Amy could see was her brother, who was looking around the caravan with a fierce and thoughtful expression and unbuttoning the shirt the two siblings were sharing as part of their disguise. "Help me get us out of these freakish pants we're both in," Tails said. "There's no use pretending we're a

two-headed person anymore, and we both need to be as able-bodied as possible."

In moments, the two Hedges wriggled out of the oversized clothing they had taken from Count Eggman's disguise kit and were standing in regular clothes, trying to balance in the shaky caravan. Amy quickly stepped out of the path of a falling potted plant, but

she couldn't help smiling as she looked at her brother. Tails was tying his hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, a sure sign that he was thinking up an invention. Tails' impressive mechanical skills had saved the Hedges' lives more times than they could count, and Amy was certain that her brother could concoct something that could stop the caravan's perilous journey.

"Are you going to make a brake?" Amy asked.

"Not yet," Tails said. "A brake interferes with the wheels of a vehicle, and this caravan's wheels are spinning too quickly for interference. I'm going to unhook these hammocks and use them as a drag chute."

"Drag chute?" Amy said.

"Drag chutes are a little like parachutes attached to the back of a car," Tails explained hurriedly, as a coatrack clattered around her. She reached up to the hammock where she and Amy had slept and quickly detached it from the wall. "Race drivers use them to help stop their cars when a race is over. If I dangle these hammocks out the caravan door, we should slow down considerably."

"What can I do?" Amy said.

"Look in Scourge 's pantry," Tails said, "and see if you can find anything sticky."

When someone tells you to do something unusual without an explanation, it is very difficult not to ask why, but Amy had learned long ago to have faith in her brother's ideas, and quickly crossed to a large cupboard Scourge had used to store ingredients for the meals he prepared. The door of the cupboard was swinging back and forth as if a ghost were fighting with it, but most of the items were still rattling around inside. Amy looked at the cupboard and thought of her baby brother, who was getting farther and farther away from him. Even though Sonic was still quite young, he had recently shown an interest in cooking, and Amy remembered how she had made up her own hot chocolate recipe, and helped prepare a delicious soup

the entire caravan had enjoyed. Amy held the cupboard door open and peered inside, and hoped that her brother would survive to develop her culinary skills.

 _"Amy,"_ Tails said firmly, taking down another hammock and tying it to the first one. "I don't mean to rush you, but we need to stop this caravan as soon as possible. Have you found anything sticky?"

Amy blinked and returned to the task at hand. A ceramic pitcher rolled around her feet as she pushed through the bottles and jars of cooking materials. "There's lots of sticky things here," she said. "I see blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, _crema_ _di noci,_ tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue. I don't know why Scourge kept glue in the pantry, but never mind. Which items do you want?"

"All of them," Tails said firmly. "Find some way of mixing them, while I tie these hammocks together."

Amy grabbed the pitcher from the floor and began to pour the ingredients into it, while Tails, sitting on the floor to make it easier to balance, gathered the cords of the hammocks in her lap and began twisting them into a knot. The caravan's journey grew rougher and rougher, and with each jolt, the Hedges felt a bit seasick, as if they were back on Lake Lachrymose, crossing its stormy waters to try and rescue one of their many unfortunate guardians. But despite the tumult around them, in moments Tails stood up with the hammocks gathered in her arms, all tied together in a mass of fabric, and Amy looked at her brother and held up the pitcher, which was filled to the brim with a thick and colorful slime.

"When I say the word," Tails said, "I'm going to open the door and cast these hammocks out. I want you at the other end of the

caravan, Amy. Open that little window and pour that mixture all over the wheels. If the hammocks work as a drag chute and the sticky substance interferes with the wheels, the caravan should slow down enough to save us. I just need to tie the hammocks to the doorknob."

"Are you using the Devil's Tongue knot?" Amy asked.

"The Devil's Tongue hasn't brought us the best luck," Tails said, referring to several previous rope-related escapades. "I'm using the Sumac, a knot I invented myself. I named it after a singer I admire. There – it feels secure. Are you ready to pour that mixture onto the wheels?"

Amy crossed to the window and opened it. The wild clattering sound of the caravan's wheels grew louder, and the Hedges stared for a moment at the countryside racing by. The land was jagged and twisty, and it seemed that the caravan could tumble at any moment into a hole, or off the edge of one of the mountain's square peaks. "I guess I'm ready," Amy said hesitantly. "Tails, before we try your invention, I want to tell you something."

"If we don't try it now," Tails said grimly, "you won't have the chance to tell me anything." he gave his knot one more tug and then turned back to Amy. "Now!" he said, and threw open the caravan door.

It is often said that if you have a room with a view, you will feel peaceful and relaxed, but if the room is a caravan hurtling down a steep and twisted road, and the view is an eerie mountain range racing backward away from you, while chilly mountain winds sting your face and toss dust into your eyes, then you will not feel one bit of peace or relaxation. Instead you will feel the horror and panic that the Hedges felt when Tails opened the door. For a moment they could do nothing but stand still, feeling the wild tilting of the caravan, and looking up at the odd, square peaks of the Mortmain Mountains, and hearing the grinding of the caravan's wheels as they rolled over rocks and tree stumps. But then Tails

shouted "Now!" once more, and both siblings snapped into action. Amy leaned out the window and began to pour the mixture of blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, _crema_ _di noci,_ tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue onto the closest wheels, while her brother tossed the hammocks out of the door, and if you have read anything of the Hedge orphans' lives – which I hope you have not – then you will not be surprised to read that Tails' invention worked perfectly. The hammocks immediately caught the rushing air and swelled out behind the caravan like enormous cloth balloons, which slowed the caravan down quite a bit, the way you would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.

The sticky mixture fell on the spinning wheels, which immediately began to move with less ferocity, the way you would run with less ferocity if you suddenly found yourself running in quicksand or through lasagne. The caravan slowed down, and the wheels spun less wildly, and within moments the two Hedges were traveling at a much more comfortable pace.

"It's working!" Amy cried.

"We're not done yet," Tails said, and walked over to a small table that had overturned in the confusion. When the Hedges were living at Caligari Carnival, the table had come in handy as a place to sit and make plans, but now in the Mortmain Mountains, it would come in handy for a different reason. Tails dragged the table over to the open door. "Now that the wheels are slowing down," he said, "we can use this as a brake."

Amy dumped the last of the mixture out of the pitcher, and turned to her brother. "How?" she said, but Tails was already showing her how. Quickly he lay on the floor, and holding the table by its

legs, dangled it out of the caravan so it dragged on the ground. Immediately there was a loud scraping sound, and the table began to shake roughly in Tails' hands. But he held fast, forcing the table to scrape against the rocky ground and slow the caravan down even more. The swaying of the caravan became gentler and gentler, and the fallen items owned by the carnival employees stopped crashing, and then with one last whine, the wheels stopped altogether, and everything was still. Tails leaned out of the door and stuck the table in front of one of the wheels so it couldn't start rolling again, and then stood up and looked at his sister.

"We did it," Tails said.

 _"You_ did it," Amy said. "The entire plan was your idea." She put down the pitcher on the floor and wiped her hands on a fallen towel.

"Don't put down that pitcher," Tails said, looking around the wreckage of the caravan. "We should gather up as many useful things as possible. We'll need to get this caravan moving uphill if we want to rescue Sonic."

"And reach the headquarters," Amy added. "Count Eggman has the map we found, but I remember that the headquarters are in the Valley of Four Drafts, near the source of the Stricken Stream. It'll be very cold there."

"Well, there is plenty of clothing," Tails said, looking around. "Let's grab everything we can and organize it outside."

Amy nodded in agreement, and picked up the pitcher again, along with several items of clothing that had fallen in a heap on top of a small hand mirror that belonged to Rosy. Staggering from carrying so many things, she walked out of the caravan behind her brother, who was carrying a large bread knife, three heavy coats, and a ukulele that Scourge used to play sometimes on lazy afternoons. The floors of the caravan creaked as the Hedges stepped outside, into the misty and empty landscape, and realized how fortunate they had been.

The caravan had stopped right at the edge of one of the odd, square peaks of the mountain range. The Mortmain Mountains looked like a staircase, heading up into the clouds or down into a veil of thick, gray mist, and if the caravan had kept going in the same direction, the two Hedges would have toppled over the peak and fallen down through the mist to the next stair, far, far below. But to one side of the caravan, the children could see the waters of the Stricken Stream, which were an odd grayish black color, and moved slowly and lazily downhill like a river of spilled oil. Had the caravan swerved to one side, the children would have been dumped into the dark and filthy waters.

"It looks like the brake worked just in time," Tails said quietly. "No matter where the caravan would have gone, we would have been finished."

Amy nodded in agreement and looked around at the wilderness. "It will be difficult to navigate the caravan out of here," Amy said. "You'll have to invent a steering device."

"And some sort of engine," Tails said. "That will take some time."

"We don't have any time," Amy said. "If we don't hurry, Count Eggman will be too far away and we'll never find Sonic."

"We'll find her," Tails said firmly, and put down the items he was carrying. "Let's go back into the caravan, and look for – "

But before Tails could say what to look for, he was interrupted by an unpleasant crackling noise. The caravan seemed to moan, and then slowly began to roll toward the edge of the peak. The Hedges looked down and saw that the wheels had smashed the small table, so there was nothing to stop the caravan from moving again. Slowly and awkwardly it pitched forward, dragging the hammocks behind it as it neared the very edge of the peak. Amy leaned down to grab hold of a hammock, but Tails stopped her. "It's too heavy," he said. "We can't stop it."

"We can't let it fall off the peak!" Amy cried.

"We'd be dragged down, too," Tails said.

Amy knew her brother was right, but still she wanted to grab the drag chute Tails had constructed. It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit that you can do nothing, and it was difficult for the Hedges to stand and watch the caravan roll over the edge of the peak. There was one last creak as the back wheels bumped against a mound of dirt, and then the caravan disappeared in absolute silence. The Hedges stepped forward and peered over the edge of the peak, but it was so misty that the caravan was only a ghostly rectangle, getting smaller and smaller as it faded away.

"Why isn't there a crash?" Amy asked.

"The drag chute is slowing it down," Tails said. "Just wait."

The siblings waited, and after a moment there was a muffled _boom!_ from below as the caravan met its fate. In the mist, the children could not see a thing, but they knew that the caravan and everything inside it were gone forever, and indeed I have never been able to find its remains, even after months of searching the area with only a lantern and a rhyming dictionary for company. It seems that even after countless nights of battling snow gnats and praying the batteries would not run out, it is my fate that some of my questions will never be answered.

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. When the Hedges were very young, they would have guessed that their fate was to grow up in happiness and contentment with their parents in the Hedge mansion, but now both the mansion and their parents were gone. When they were attending Prufrock Preparatory School, they had thought that their fate was to graduate alongside their friends the Quagmires, but they hadn't seen the academy or the two triplets in a very long time. And just moments ago, it had looked like Tails and Amy's fate had been to fall off a peak or into a stream, but now they were alive and well,

but far away from their brother and without a vehicle to help them find him again.

Tails and Amy moved closer to one another, and felt the icy winds of the Mortmain Mountains blow down the road less traveled and give them goosebumps. They looked at the dark and swirling waters of the Stricken Stream, and they looked down from the edge of the peak into the mist, and then looked at one another and shivered, not only at the fates they had avoided, but at all the mysterious fates that lay ahead.

CHAPTER

 **Two**

Tails took one last look over the misty peak, and then reached down to put on one of the heavy coats she had taken from the caravan. "Take one of these coats," he said to his sister. "It's cold out here, and it's likely to get even colder. The headquarters are supposed to be very high up in the mountains. By the time we get there, we'll probably be wearing every stitch of this clothing."

"But how are we going to get there?" Amy said. "We're nowhere near the Valley of Four Drafts, and the caravan is destroyed."

"Let's take a moment to see what we have," Tails said. "I might be able to construct something from the items we managed to take."

"I hope so," Amy said. "Sonic is getting farther and farther away. We'll never catch up with him without some sort of vehicle."

Amy spread out the items from the caravan, and put on one of the coats while Tails picked through her pile, but instantly the two Hedges saw that a vehicle was not in the realm of possibility, a phrase which here means "could not be made from a few small objects and some articles of clothing previously belonging to carnival employees." Tails tied his bangs up in a ribbon again and frowned down on the few items they had managed to save. In Amy's pile there was the pitcher, still sticky from the substance he had used to slow down the caravan wheels, as well as Rosy's hand mirror, a wool poncho, and a sweatshirt that read CALlGARl CARNIVAL. In Tails' pile was the large bread knife, the ukulele, and one more coat. Even Amy, who was not as mechanically minded as her brother, knew that the materials gathered on the ground were not enough to make something that could take the two

children through the Mortmain Mountains.

"I suppose I could make a spark by rubbing two rocks together," Tails said, looking around the misty countryside for additional inventing materials, "or we could play the ukulele and bang on the pitcher. A loud noise might attract some help."

"But who would hear it?" Amy said, gazing at the gloomy mist. "We didn't see a sign of anyone else when we were in the caravan. The way through the Mortmain Mountains is like a poem I read once, about the road less traveled."

"Did the poem have a happy ending?" Tails asked.

"It was neither happy nor unhappy," Amy said. "It was ambiguous. Well, let's gather up these materials and take them with us."

"Take them with us?" Tails said. "We don't know where to go, and we don't know how to get there."

"Sure we do," Amy said. "The Stricken Stream starts at a source high in the mountains, and winds its way down through the Valley of Four Drafts, where the headquarters are. It's probably not the quickest or easiest way to get there, but if we follow the stream up the mountains, it'll take us where we want to go."

"But that could take days," Tails said. "We don't have a map, or any food or water for the journey, or tents or sleeping bags or any other camping equipment."

"We can use all this clothing as blankets," Amy said, "and we can sleep in any shelter we find. There were quite a few caves on the map that animals use for hibernation."

The two Hedges looked at one another and shivered in the chilly breeze. The idea of hiking for hours in the mountains, only to sleep wrapped in someone else's clothing in a cave that might contain hibernating animals, was not a pleasant one, and the siblings wished they did not have to take the road less traveled, but

instead could travel in a swift, well-heated vehicle and reach their sister in mere moments. But wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake, and the Hedges knew that it would be best to stop wishing and start their journey. Amy put the hand mirror and the ukulele in his coat pockets and picked up the poncho and the pitcher, while Tails put the bread knife in her pocket and picked up the sweatshirt and the last coat, and then, with one last look at the tracks the caravan left behind as it toppled over the peak, the two children began to follow the Stricken Stream.

If you have ever traveled a long distance with a family member, then you know that there are times when you feel like talking and times when you feel like being quiet. This was one of the quiet times. Tails and Amy walked up the slopes of the mountain toward the headquarters they hoped to reach, and they heard the sound of the mountain winds, a low, tuneless moan like someone blowing across the top of an empty bottle, and the odd, rough sound of the stream's fish as they stuck their heads out of the dark, thick waters of the stream, but both travelers were in a quiet mood and did not say a word to one another, each lost in their own thoughts.

Tails let his mind wander to the time he had spent with his siblings in the Village of Fowl Devotees, when a mysterious man named Chocolate Snicket was murdered, and the children were blamed for the crime. They had managed to escape from prison and rescue their friends Manic and Sonia Quagmire from Count Eggman's clutches, but then had been separated at the last moment from the two triplets, who sailed away in a self-sustaining hot air mobile home built by a hawk named Jet. None of the Hedges had seen Jet or the two Quagmires since, and Tails wondered if they were safe and if they had managed to contact a secret organization they'd discovered. The organization was called V.F.D., and the Hedges had not yet learned exactly what the organization did,

or even what all the letters stood for. The children thought that the headquarters at the Valley of Four Drafts might prove to be helpful, but now, as the eldest Hedge trudged alongside the Stricken Stream, she wondered if she would ever find the answers she was looking for.

Amy was also thinking about the Quagmires, although she was thinking about when the Hedges first met them, at Prufrock Preparatory School. Many of the students at the school had been quite mean to the three siblings – particularly a very nasty girl named Sally Spats – but Sonia and Manic had been very kind, and soon the Hedges and the Quagmires had become inseparable, a word which here means "close friends." One reason for their friendship had been that both sets of children had lost people who were close to them. The Hedges had lost their parents, of course, and the Quagmires had lost not only their parents but their brother, the third Quagmire triplet, whose name was Shadow. Amy thought about the Quagmires' tragedy, and felt a little guilty that one of her own parents might be alive after all. A document the Hedges had found contained a picture of their parents standing with Chocolate Snicket and another man, with a caption reading "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown." Amy had this document in his pocket right now, along with a few scraps of the Quagmires' notebooks that they had managed to give him. Amy walked beside her older brother, thinking of the puzzle of V.F.D. and how kindly the Quagmires had tried to help them solve the mystery that surrounded them all. He was thinking so hard about these things that when Tails finally broke the silence, it was as if he were waking up from a long, confusing dream.

"Amy," he said, "when we were in the caravan, you said you wanted to tell me something before we tried the invention, but I didn't let you. What was it?"

"I don't know," Amy admitted. "I just wanted to say something, in case – well, in case the invention didn't work." She sighed, and looked up at the darkening sky. "I don't remember the last thing I said to Sonic," she said quietly. "It must have been when we were in Madame Lulu's tent, or maybe outside, just before we stepped into the caravan. Had I known that Count Eggman was going to take him away, I would have tried to say something special. I could have complimented him on the hot chocolate he made, or told him how skillful he was at staying in disguise."

"You can tell him those things," Tails said, "when we see him again."

"I hope so," Amy said glumly, "but we're so far behind Eggman and his troupe."

"But we know where they're going," Tails said, "and we know that he won't harm a hair on his head. Count Eggman thinks we perished in the caravan, so he needs Sonic to get his hands on the fortune."

"He's probably unharmed," Amy agreed, "but I'm sure he's very frightened. I just hope he knows we're coming after him."

"Me, too," Tails said, and walked in a silence for a while, interrupted only by the wind and the odd, gurgling noise of the fish.

"I think those fish are having trouble breathing," Amy said, pointing into the stream. "Something in the water is making them cough."

"Maybe the Stricken Stream isn't always that ugly colour," Tails said. "What would turn normal water into grayish black slime?"

"Iron ore," Amy said thoughtfully, trying to remember a book on high-altitude environmentalism she had read when she was ten. "Or perhaps a clay deposit, loosened by an earthquake or another geological event, or some sort of pollution. There might be an ink or licorice factory nearby."

"Maybe V.F.D. will tell us," Tails said, "when we reach the headquarters."

"Maybe one of our parents will tell us," Amy said quietly.

"We shouldn't get our hopes up," Tails said. "Even if one of our parents really did survive the fire, and the V.F.D. headquarters really are at the Valley of Four Drafts, we still don't know that we will see them when we arrive."

"I don't see the harm in getting our hopes up," Amy said. "We're walking along a damaged stream, toward a vicious villain, in an attempt to rescue our sister and find the headquarters of a secret organization. I could use a little bit of hope right now."

Tails stopped in her path. "I could use another layer of clothing," she said. "It's getting colder."

Amy nodded in agreement, and held up the garment he was carrying. "Do you want the poncho," he asked, "or the sweatshirt?"

"The poncho, if you don't mind," Tails said. "After my experience in the House of Freaks, I don't wish to advertise the Caligari Carnival."

"Me neither," Amy said, taking the lettered sweatshirt from her brother. "I think I'll wear it inside out."

Rather than take off their coats and expose themselves to the icy winds of the Mortmain Mountains, Amy put on the inside-out sweatshirt over her coat, and Tails wore the poncho outside his, where it hung awkwardly around her. The two elder Hedges looked at one another and had to smile at their ridiculous appearance.

"These are worse than the pinstripe suits Eudora Squalor gave us," Tails said.

"Or those itchy sweaters we wore when we stayed with Mr. Silver Poe," Amy said, referring to a banker who oversaw the Hedge fortune, with whom they had lost touch. "But at least

we'll keep warm. If it gets even colder, we can take turns wearing the extra coat."

"If one of our parents is at the headquarters," Tails said, "he or she might not recognize us underneath all this clothing. We'll look like two large lumps."

The two Hedges looked up at the snow-covered peaks above them and felt a bit dizzy, not only from the height of the Mortmain Mountains but from all the questions buzzing around their heads.

Could they really reach the Valley of Four Drafts all by themselves? What would the headquarters look like? Would V.F.D. be expecting the Hedges? Would Count Eggman have reached the headquarters ahead of them? Would they find Sonic? Would they find one of their parents? Tails and Amy looked at one another in silence and shivered in their strange clothes, until finally Amy broke the silence with one more question, which seemed the dizziest one of all.

"Which parent," she said, "do you think is the survivor?"

Tails opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment another question immediately occupied the minds of the elder Hedges. It is a dreadful question, and nearly everyone who has found themselves asking it has ended up wishing that they'd never brought up the subject. My brother asked the question once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. An associate of mine asked the question, and found himself falling through the air before he could hear the answer. It is a question I asked once, a very long time ago and in a very timid voice, and a woman replied by quickly putting a motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a scarlet silk cape. The question is, "What in the world is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?" and I'm sorry to tell you that the answer is "A swarm of well-organized,

ill-tempered insects known as snow gnats, who live in cold mountain areas and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatsoever."

"What in the world," Tails said, "is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?"

Amy looked in the direction her brother was pointing and frowned. "I remember reading something in a book on mountainous insect life," she said, "but I can't quite recall the details."

"Try to remember," Tails said, looking nervously at the approaching swarm. The ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects had appeared from around a rocky corner, and from a distance it looked a bit like the beginnings of a snowfall. But now the snowfall was organizing itself into the shape of an arrow, and moving toward the two children, buzzing louder and louder as if it were annoyed. "I think they might be snow gnats," Amy said. "Snow gnats live in cold mountain areas and have been known to group themselves into well-defined shapes."

Tails looked from the approaching arrow to the waters of the stream and the steep edge of the mountain peak. "I'm glad gnats are harmless," she said. "It doesn't look like there's any way to avoid them."

"There's something else about snow gnats," Amy said, "that I'm not quite remembering."

The swarm drew quite close, with the tip of the fluttering white arrow just a few inches from the Hedges' noses, and then stopped in its path, buzzing angrily. The two siblings stood

face-to-face with the snow gnats for a long, tense second, and the gnat at the very, very tip of the arrow flew daintily forward and stung Tails on the nose.

"Ow!" Tails said. The snow gnat flew back to its place, and the eldest Hedge was left rubbing a tiny red mark on her nose. "That hurt," he said. "It feels like a pin stuck me."

"I remember now," Amy said. "Snow gnats are ill-tempered and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatso – "

But Amy did not get to finish her sentence, because the snow gnats interrupted and gave a ghastly demonstration of just what he was talking about. Curling lazily in the mountain winds, the arrow

twisted and became a large buzzing circle, and the gnats began to spin around and around the two Hedges like a well-organized and ill-tempered hula hoop. Each gnat was so tiny that the children could not see any of its features, but they felt as if the insects were smiling nastily.

"Are the stings poisonous?" Tails asked.

"Mildly," Amy said. "We'll be all right if we get stung a few times, but many stings could make us very ill. Ow!"

One of the gnats had flown up and stung Amy on the cheek, as if it were seeing if the middle Hedge was fun to hurt. "People always say that if you don't bother stinging insects, they won't bother you," Tails said nervously. "Ow!"

"That's scarcely ever true," Amy said, "and it's certainly not true with snow gnats. Ow! Ow! _Ow!"_

"What should we – _Ow!"_ Tails half asked.

"I don't – _Ow!"_ Amy half answered, but in moments the Hedges did not have time for even half a conversation. The circle of snow gnats began spinning faster and faster, and the insects spread themselves out so it looked as if the two siblings were in the middle of a tiny, white tornado. Then, in a series of manoeuvres that must have taken a great deal of rehearsal, the gnats began stinging the Hedges, first on one side and then on the other. Tails shrieked as several gnats stung his chin. Amy shouted as a handful of gnats stung her left ear. And both Hedges cried out as they tried to wave the gnats away only to feel the stingers all over their waving hands. The snow gnats stung to the left, and stung to the right. They approached the Hedges from above, making the children duck, and then from below, making the children stand on tiptoe in an effort to avoid them. And all the while, the swarm buzzed louder and louder, as if wishing to remind the Hedges how much fun the insects were having. Tails and Amy closed their eyes and stood together, too scared to walk blindly and find

themselves falling off a mountain peak or sinking into the waters of the Stricken Stream. Him

 _"Coat!"_ Amy managed to shout, then spit out a gnat that had flown into her open mouth in the hopes of stinging her tongue. Tails understood at once, and grabbed the extra coat in his hands and draped it over Amy and himself like a large, limp umbrella of cloth. The snow gnats buzzed furiously, trying to get inside to continue stinging them, but had to settle for stinging the Hedges' hands as they held the coat in place.

Tails and Amy looked at one another dimly underneath the coat, wincing as their fingers were stung, and tried to keep walking.

"We'll never reach the Valley of Four Drafts like this," Tails said, speaking louder than usual over the buzzing of the gnats. "How can we stop them, Amy?"

"Fire drives them away," Amy said. "In the book I read, the author said that even the smell of smoke can keep a whole swarm at bay. But we can't start a fire underneath a coat."

"Ow!" A snow gnat stung Tails' thumb on a spot that had already been stung, just as the Hedges rounded the rocky corner where the swarm had first appeared. Through a worn spot in the fabric, the Hedges could just make out a dark, circular hole in the side of the mountain.

"That must be an entrance to one of the caves," Amy said. "Could we start a fire in there?"

"Maybe," Tails said. "And maybe we'd annoy a hibernating animal."

"We've already managed to annoy thousands of animals," Amy said, almost dropping the pitcher as a gnat stung his wrist. "I don't think we have much choice. I think, we have to head into the cave and take our chances."

Tails nodded in agreement, but looked nervously at the entrance

to the cave. Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck. The two Hedges walked carefully toward the dark, circular hole, making sure to stay clear of the nearby edge of the peak and pulling the coat tightly around them so the snow gnats could not find a way inside, but what worried them most was not the height of the peak or the stingers of the gnats but the chances they were taking as they ducked inside the gloomy entrance of the cave.

The two Hedges had never been in this cave before, of course, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, they were never in it again, even on their way back down the mountain, after they had been reunited with their baby brother and learned the secret of Verbal Fridge Dialogue. And yet, as Tails and Amy took their chances and walked inside, they found two things with which they were familiar. The first was fire. As they stood inside the entrance to the cave, the siblings realized at once that there was no need to worry about the snow gnats any longer, because they could smell nearby smoke, and even see, at a great distance, small orange flames toward the back of the cave. Fire, of course, was very familiar to the children, from the ashen smell of the remains of the Hedge mansion to the scent of the flames that destroyed Caligari Carnival. But as the snow gnats formed an arrow and darted away from the cave and the Hedges took another step inside, Tails and Amy found another familiar thing – a familiar person, to be exact, who they had thought they would never see again.

"Hey you cakesniffers!" said a voice from the back of the cave, and the sound was almost enough to make the two Hedges wish they had taken their chances someplace else.

CHAPTER

 **Three**

You may well wonder why there is no account of Sonic Hedge in the first two chapters of this book, but there are several reasons why this is so. For one thing, Sonic's journey in Count Eggman's car was much more difficult to research. The tracks made by the tires of the car have vanished long ago, and so many blizzards and avalanches have occurred in the Mortmain Mountains that even the road itself has largely disappeared. The few witnesses to Eggman's journey have mostly died under mysterious circumstances, or were too frightened to answer the letters, telegrams, and greeting cards I sent them requesting an interview, but I managed to get ahold of 5 people who I will not name managed to assist me. Also the litter that was thrown out the window of Eggman's car – the clearest sign that evil people have driven by – was picked up off the road long before my work began. The missing litter is a good sign, as it indicates that certain animals of the Mortmain Mountains have returned to their posts and are rebuilding their nests, but it has made it very hard for me to write a complete account of Sonic's travels.

But if you are interested in knowing how Sonic Hedge spent his time while her siblings stopped the caravan, followed the path of the Stricken Stream, and struggled against the snow gnats, there is another story you might read that describes more or less the same situation. The story concerns a person named Cinderella. Cinderella was a young person who was placed in the care of various wicked people who teased her and forced her to do all the chores.

Eventually Cinderella was rescued by her fairy godmother, who magically created a special outfit for Cinderella to wear to a ball where she met a handsome prince, married him soon afterward, and

lived happily ever after in a castle. If you substitute the name "Cinderella" with the name "Sonic Hedge," change it from a girl to a boy and eliminate the fairy godmother, the special outfit, the ball, the handsome prince, the marriage, and living happily ever after in a castle, you will have a clear idea of Sonic's predicament.

"I wish the baby orphan would stop that irritating crying," Count Eggman said, wrinkling his one eyebrow as the car made another violent turn. "Nothing spoils a nice car trip like a whiny kidnapping victim."

"I'm pinching him as often as I can," Eudora Squalor said, and gave Sonic another pinch with her stylish fingernails, "but he still won't shut up."

"Listen, toothy," Eggman said, taking his eyes off the road to glare at Sonic. "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about."

Sonic gave a little whimper of annoyance, and wiped his eyes with his tiny hands. It was true that he had been crying for most of the day, throughout a long drive that even the most dedicated of researchers would be unable to trace, and now as the sun set, he still had not been able to stop himself. But at Count Eggman's words, he was almost more irritated than frightened. It is always tedious when someone says that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying than you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much.

Sonic Hedge certainly felt she had sufficient reason to weep. He was worried about his siblings, and wondered how they were going to stop the runaway caravan from hurtling them to their doom. he was frightened for himself, now that Count Eggman had discovered his disguise, torn off his beard, and trapped him on Eudora's lap. And he was in pain, from the constant pinching of the villain's girlfriend. "No pinch," he said to Eudora, but the wicked and stylish woman just frowned as if Sonic had spoken nonsense.

"When he's not crying," Eudora said, "the baby talks in some foreign language. I can't understand a thing he's saying."

"Kidnapped children are never any fun," said the hook-handed fox, who was perhaps Sonic's least favorite of Eggman's troupe. "Remember when we had the Quagmires in our clutches, boss? They did nothing but complain. They complained when we put them in a cage. They complained when we trapped them inside a fountain.

Complain, complain, complain – I was so sick of them I was almost glad when they escaped from our clutches."

"Glad?" Count Eggman said with a snarl. "We worked hard to steal the Quagmire fortune, and we didn't get a single sapphire. That was a real waste of time."

"Don't blame yourself, Eggman," said one of the white-faced women from the back seat. "Everybody makes mistakes."

"Not this time," Eggman said. "With the two orphans squashed someplace underneath a crashed caravan and the baby orphan on your lap, the Hedge fortune is mine. And once we reach the Valley of Four Drafts and find the headquarters, all our worries will be over."

"Why?" asked Scourge , the hunchbacked man who had previously been employed at the carnival.

"Yes, please explain," said Miles, another former carnival worker.

At Caligari Carnival, Miles had been embarrassed to be ambidextrous, but Eudora had lured him into joining Eggman's troupe by tying Miles's right hand behind his back, so no one would know it was as strong as his left. "Remember, boss, we're new to the troupe, so we don't always know what's going on."

"I remember when I first joined Eggman's troupe," the other

white-faced woman said. "I'd never even heard of the Snicket file."

"Working for me is a hands-on learning experience," Eggman said. "You can't rely on me to explain everything to you. I'm a very busy

man."

"I'll explain it, boss," said the hook-handed fox. "Count Eggman, like any good businessman, has committed a wide variety of crimes."

"But these stupid volunteers have gathered all sorts of evidence and filed it away," Eudora said. "I tried to explain that crime is very in right now, but apparently they weren't interested."

Sonic wiped another tear from his eye and sighed. The youngest Hedge thought he'd almost rather be pinched again than hear any more of Eudora Squalor's nonsense about what was in – the word that Eudora used for "fashionable" – and what was out.

"We need to destroy those files, or Count Eggman could be arrested," the hook-handed fox said. "We have reason to believe that some of the files are at V.F.D. headquarters."

"What does V.F.D. stand for?" The voice of Rosy came from the floor of the automobile.

Count Eggman had ordered her to use her skills as a carnival contortionist to curl up at the feet of the other members of the troupe.

"That's top-secret information!" Eggman growled, to Sonic's disappointment. "I used to be a member of the organization myself, but I found it was more fun to be an individual practitioner."

"What does that mean?" asked the hook-handed fox.

"It means a life of crime," Eudora replied. "It's very in right now." "Wrong def." Sonic could not help speaking through her tears. By

"wrong def he meant something along the lines of, "An individual practitioner means someone who works alone, instead of with a group, and it has nothing to do with a life of crime," and it made him sad that there was no one around who could understand him.

"There you go, babbling away," Eudora said. "This is why I never want to have children.

Except as servants, of course."

"This journey is easier than I thought," Eggman said. "The map says we just have to pass a few more caves."

"Is there an in hotel near the headquarters?" Eudora asked.

"I'm afraid not, sweetheart," the villain replied, "but I have two tents in the trunk of the car. We'll be camping on Mount Fraught, the summit of the Mortmain Mountains."

"The summit?" Eudora said. "It'll be cold at the highest peak."

"It's true," Eggman admitted, "but False Spring is on its way, so before long it'll be a bit warmer."

"But what about tonight?" Eudora Squalor said. "It is definitely _not_ in for me to set up tents in the freezing cold. But I think camping is though."

Count Eggman looked at his girlfriend and began to laugh, and Sonic could smell the foul breath of his nasty giggles. "Don't be silly," the villain said finally. _"You're_ not going to set up the tents, Eudora.

You're going to stay nice and toasty in the car. The bucktoothed baby will set up the tents for us."

Now Eggman's entire troupe laughed, and the car filled with the stench of so many villains' bad breath. Sonic felt a few more tears roll down his face, and turned to the window so no one would see. The car's windows were very dirty, but the youngest Hedge could see the strange, square peaks of the Mortmain Mountains and the dark waters of the Stricken Stream. By now the car had driven so high up in the mountains that the stream was mostly ice, and Sonic looked at the wide stripe of frozen blackness and wondered where his siblings were, and if they were coming to rescue him. He remembered the other time he had been in Count Eggman's clutches, when the villain had tied him up, locked him in a cage and dangled him outside his tower room as part of one of his schemes. It had been an absolutely terrifying experience for the youngest Hedge, and he often still had nightmares about the creaking of

the cage and the distant sight of his two siblings looking up at him from Count Eggman's backyard. But Tails had built a grappling hook to rescue him, and both of his siblings had done some important legal research to defeat Eggman's scheme. As the car took Sonic farther and farther away from his siblings, and he stared out at the lonesome terrain, he knew that they could save him again.

"How long will we stay on Mount Fraught?" Scourge asked. "Until I say so, of course," Count Eggman replied.

"You'll soon find out that much of this job involves a lot of waiting around," the hook-handed fox said. "I usually keep something around to help pass the time, like a deck of cards or a large rock."

"It can be dull," admitted one of the white-faced women, "and it can be dangerous. Several of our comrades have recently suffered terrible fates."

"It was worth it," Count Eggman said nonchalantly, a word which here means "in a tone of voice that indicated he didn't care one bit about his deceased employees." "Sometimes a few people need to die in fires or get eaten by lions, if it's all for the greater good."

"What's the greater good?" asked Rosy.

"Money!" Eudora cried in greedy glee. "Money and personal satisfaction, and we're going to get both of those things out of this whimpering baby on my lap! Once we have our hands on the Hedge fortune, we'll have enough money to live a life of luxury and plan several more treacherous schemes!"

The entire troupe cheered, and Count Eggman gave Sonic a filthy grin, but did not say anything more as the car raced up a steep, bumpy hill, and at last screeched to a halt, just as the last rays of the sun faded into the evening sky. "We're here at last," Count Eggman said, and handed the car keys to Sonic. "Get out, baby orphan. Unload everything from the trunk and set up the tents."

"And bring us some potato chips," Eudora said, "so we'll have

something in to eat while we wait."

Eudora opened the door of the car, placed Sonic on the frozen ground, and slammed the door shut again. Instantly, the chilly mountain air surrounded the youngest Hedge and made him shiver. It was so bitterly cold at the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains that his tears froze in their tracks, forming a tiny mask of ice all over his face. Unsteadily, Sonic rose to his feet and walked to the back of the car. he was tempted to run, and escape from Eggman while he waited in the car with his troupe. But where could he go? Sonic looked around at his surroundings and could not see a place where a baby would be safe by himself.

The summit of Mount Fraught was a small, flat square, and as Sonic walked to the trunk of the car, he gazed off each edge of the square, feeling a bit dizzy from the great height. From three of the edges, he could see the square and misty peaks of some of the other mountains, most of which were covered in snow, and twisting through the peaks were the strange, black waters of the Stricken Stream, and the rocky path that the car had driven along. But from the fourth side of the square peak, Sonic saw something so strange it took him a moment to figure out what it was.

Extending from the highest peak in the Mortmain Mountains was a glittering white strip, like an enormous piece of shiny paper folded downward, or the wing of some tremendous bird. Sonic watched the very last rays of the sunset reflect off this enormous surface and slowly realized what it was: the source of the Stricken Stream. Like many streams, the Stricken Stream originated within the rocks of the mountains, and in the warmer season, Sonic could see that it cascaded down from the highest peak in an enormous waterfall. But this was not a warm time of year, and just as Sonic's tears had frozen on his face, the waterfall had frozen solid, into a long, slippery slope that disappeared into the darkness below. It was such an eerie sight that it took Sonic a moment to wonder why the ice was white, instead of black like the waters of the Stricken Stream.

 _Honk!_ A loud blast from Count Eggman's horn made Sonic remember what he was supposed to be doing, and he hurriedly opened the trunk and found a bag of potato chips that was as big as he was, which he brought with difficulty back to the car. "That took a very long time, orphan," said Eggman, rather than "Thank you." "Now go set up the tents, one for Eudora and me and one for my troupe, so we can get some sleep."

"Where is the baby going to stay?" asked the hook-handed fox. "I don't want him in my tent. I hear that babies can creep up and steal your breath while you're sleeping."

"Well, he's certainly not sleeping with me," Eudora said. "It's not in to have a baby in your tent."

"He's not going to sleep in either tent," Eggman decided. "There's a large covered casserole dish in the trunk. He can sleep in there."

"Will he be safe in a casserole dish?" Eudora said. "Remember, Eggman honey, if he dies then we can't get our hands on the fortune."

"There are a few holes in the top so he can breathe," Eggman said, "and the cover will protect him from the snow gnats."

"Snow gnats?" asked Scourge .

"Snow gnats are well-organized, ill-tempered insects," Count Eggman explained, "who live in cold mountain areas and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatsoever. I've always been fond of them."

"Nonat," Sonic said, which meant "I didn't notice any such insects outside," but no one paid any attention.

"Won't he run away if no one's watching him?" asked Miles.

"he wouldn't dare," Count Eggman said, "and even if he tried to survive in the mountains by himself, we could see where he went. That's why we're staying here at the summit. We'll know if the brat escapes, or if anyone's coming after us, because we can see everything and everyone for miles and miles."

"Eureka," Sonic said, before he could stop herself. he meant

something along the lines of, "I've just realized something," but he had not meant to say it out loud.

"Stop your babbling and get busy, you fanged brat!" Eudora Squalor said, and slammed the car door shut. Sonic could hear the laughing of the troupe and the crunching of potato chips as she walked slowly back to the trunk to find the tents.

It is often quite frustrating to arrange all of the cloth and the poles so that a tent works correctly, which is why I have always preferred to stay in hotels or rented castles, which also have the added attractions of solid walls and maid service. Sonic, of course, had the extra disadvantages of trying to do it himself, in the dark, when he was still fairly new at walking and was worried about his siblings. But the youngest Hedge had a history of performing Herculean tasks, a phrase which here means "managing to do incredibly difficult things." As I'm sure you know, if you are ever forced to do something very difficult, it often helps to think of something inspiring to keep you going. When Sonic had engaged in a sword-and-tooth fight at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, for instance, he thought of how much he cared for his siblings, and it helped him defeat the evil Dr. Rouge Orwell. When Sonic climbed up an elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue, he had concentrated on his friends the Quagmires, and how much he wanted to rescue them, and before too long he had reached the penthouse apartment. So, as Sonic dug a hole in the frozen ground with his teeth so the tent poles would stay in place, he thought of something that inspired him, and oddly enough it was something that Count Eggman had said, about being able to see everything and everyone for miles and miles. As Sonic assembled the tents, and gazed down every so often at the slippery slope of the frozen waterfall, he decided that he would not try to sneak away from Eggman and his troupe. he would not to try to sneak anywhere. Because if you could see everything and everyone from Mount Fraught, that also meant everything and everyone, including Tails and Amy Hedge, would be able to see him.

CHAPTER

 **Four**

That night was a dark day. Of course, all nights are dark days, because night is simply a badly lit version of day, due to the fact that the Earth travels around and around the sun reminding everyone that it is time to get out of bed and start the day with a cup of coffee or a secret message folded up into a paper airplane that can sail out the barred window of a ranger station. But in this case, the phrase "a dark day" means "a sad time in the history of the Hedge children, V.F.D., and all kind, brave, and well-read people in the world." But Tails and Amy Hedge, of course, had no idea of the catastrophe occurring high above them in the Valley of Four Drafts. All they knew was that they were hearing a voice they had hoped never to hear again.

"Go away, cakesniffers!" the voice said. "This is a private cave!"

"Who are you talking to, Sally?" asked another voice. This voice was much louder, and sounded like it belonged to a grown man.

"I can see two shadows in the entrance of the cave, Uncle Max," said the first voice, "and to me they look like cakesniffers."

The back of the cave echoed with giggling, and Tails and Amy looked at one another in dismay. The familiar voice belonged to Sally Spats, the nasty little girl whom the Hedges had encountered at Prufrock Preparatory School. Sally had taken an instant dislike to the three siblings, calling them unpleasant names and generally making life miserable at the academy. If you have ever been a student, then you know that there is usually one such

person at every school and that once you have graduated you hope never to see them again, unless of course if they turn over a new leaf, a phrase which here means, 'realize how bad they were and tried to make up for it'. The two elder Hedges had enough troubles in the Mortmain Mountains without running into this unpleasant person, who hadn't turned over a new leaf, and at the sound of her voice they almost turned around and took their chances once more with the snow gnats swarming outside.

"Two shadows?" asked the second voice. "Identify yourselves, please."

"We're mountain travelers," Tails called from the entrance. "We lost our way and ran into a swarm of snow gnats. Please let us rest here for a moment, while the smell of smoke scares them away, and then we'll be on our way."

"Absolutely not!" replied Sally, who sounded even nastier than usual. "This is where the Snow Scouts are camping, on their way to celebrate False Spring and crown me queen. We don't want any cakesniffers spoiling our fun."

"Now, now, Sally," said the voice of the grown man. "Snow Scouts are supposed to be accommodating, remember? It's part of the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge. And it would be very accommodating of us to offer these strangers the shelter of our cave."

"I don't want to be accommodating," Sally said. "I'm the False Spring Queen, so I get to do whatever I want."

"You're not the False Spring Queen yet, Sally," came the patient voice of a young boy. "Not until we dance around the Spring-pole. Do come in, travellers, and sit by the fire. We're happy to accommodate you."

"That's the spirit, kid," said the voice of the grown man. "Come on, Snow Scouts, let's all say the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge together."

Instantly the cave echoed with the sound of many voices speaking

in perfect unison, a phrase which here means "reciting a list of very odd words at the very same time." "Snow Scouts," recited the Snow Scouts, "are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered – every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!"

The two Hedges looked at one another in confusion. Like many pledges, the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge had not made much sense, and Tails and Amy tried to imagine how a scout could be "calm" and "meek" at the same time as being "frisky" and "jumping," or how all these children could avoid being "young" or "human," even if they wanted to. They couldn't figure out why the pledge suggested being all these things "every morning," "every afternoon," and "every night," and then added "all day long," or why the word "xylophone" appeared in the pledge at all. But they did not have much time to wonder, because when the pledge was over, the Snow Scouts all took a big breath and made a long, airy sound, as if they were imitating the wind outside, and this seemed even more strange.

"That's my favourite part," said the voice of the grown man, when the sound faded away. "There's nothing like ending the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge with a snowy sound. Now approach, travellers, so we can get a look at you."

"Let's keep the coat over our faces," Amy whispered to her brother. "Sally might recognize us."

"And the other scouts have probably seen our pictures in _The Daily Punctilio"_ Tails said, and ducked his head underneath the coat. _The Daily Punctilio_ was a newspaper that had published a story blaming the three Hedges for Chocolate Snicket's murder. The story was utter nonsense, of course, but it seemed that everyone in the world had believed it and was searching for the Hedges to put them in

jail. As the two siblings walked toward the voices of the Snow Scouts, however, they realized that they weren't the only ones concealing their faces.

The back of the cave was like a large, circular room, with very high ceilings and craggy walls of rock that flickered in the orange light of the flames. Seated in a circle around the fire were fifteen or twenty people, all looking up at the two Hedges. Through the fabric of the coat, the children could see that one person was much taller than the others – this was probably Max – and was wearing an ugly plaid coat and holding a large cigar. On the opposite side of the circle was someone wearing a thick wool sweater with several large pockets, and the rest of the Snow Scouts were wearing bright white uniforms with enormous zippers down the front and emblems of snowflakes, in all different sizes and shapes, along the long, puffy sleeves. On the back of the uniforms, the Hedges could see the words of the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge printed in large pink letters, and on the top of everyone's heads were white headbands with tiny plastic snowflakes sticking out of the top in all directions and the word "Brr!" written in icy script. But Tails and Amy weren't looking at the plastic flurries of snow on the Snow Scouts' heads, or the accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek,

nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered uniforms that most everyone was wearing. They were looking at the dark, round masks that were covering the scouts' faces. The masks were covered in tiny holes, much like masks worn for fencing, a sport in which people swordfight for fun rather than for honor or in order to rescue a writer who has been taped to the wall. But in the flickering light of the cave, the Hedges could not see the holes, and it looked like the faces of Max and the Snow Scouts had vanished, leaving a dark and empty hole above their necks.

"You cakesniffers look ridiculous," said one of the scouts, and the

Hedges knew at once which masked figure was Sally Spats. "Your faces are all covered up."

"We're meek," Tails said, thinking quickly. "In fact, we're so meek that we hardly ever show our faces."

"Then you'll fit in just fine," said Max from behind his mask. "The name's Max, but you can call me Uncle Max, although I'm almost certainly not your real uncle. Welcome to the Snow Scouts, travelers, where all of us are meek. In fact, we're accommodating, basic, calm . . ."

The other Snow Scouts all joined in the pledge, and the two elder Hedges stood through another rendition of the absurd list, while the scout in the sweater stood up and stepped toward them. "We have some spare masks over there," he murmured quietly, and gestured toward a large pile of equipment, stacked beside a very long wooden pole. "They'll keep the snow gnats away when you go back outside. Help yourself."

"Thank you," Amy replied, as the scouts promised to be kept, limited, and meek. She and her brother quickly grabbed masks and put them on underneath the coat, so that by the time the scouts vowed to be xylophone, young, and zippered, they looked as faceless as everyone else in the cave.

"That was fun, kids," said Max, as the snowy sound faded and the pledge was over. "Now why don't you two join the Snow Scouts? We're an organization for young people to have fun and learn new things. Right now we're on a Snow Scout Hike. We're going to hike all the way up to Mount Fraught in order to celebrate False Spring."

"What's False Spring?" Amy asked, sitting down between her brother and the sweatered scout.

"Anybody who's not a cakesniffer knows what False Spring is," Sally said in a scornful voice. "It's when the weather gets unusually warm before getting very cold again. We celebrate it with a fancy dance where we spin around and around the Springpole."

She pointed to the wooden pole, and the Hedges noticed that the Snow Scouts all wore bright white mittens, each emblazoned with an S. "When the dance is over, we choose the best Snow Scout and crown her the False Spring Queen. This time, it's me. In fact, it's always me."

"That's because Uncle Max is really your uncle," said one of the other Snow Scouts.

"No, it's not," Sally insisted. "It's because I'm the most accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered."

"How can anyone be 'xylophone'?" Amy couldn't help asking. "'Xylophone' isn't even an adjective."

"Uncle Max couldn't think of another word that began with X," explained the sweatered Snow Scout, in a tone of voice indicating that he thought this wasn't a very good excuse.

"How about 'xenial'?" Amy suggested. "It's a word that means – "

"You can't change the words of the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge," Max interrupted, moving his cigar toward his face as if he were going to try to smoke it through the mask. "The whole point of the Snow Scouts is that you do the same thing over and over. We celebrate False Spring over and over, on Mount Fraught, at the source of the Stricken Stream. My niece Sally Spats is False Spring Queen, over and over. And over and over, we stop here in this cave for Snow Scout Story Time."

"I read that the caves of the Mortmain Mountains contained hibernating animals," Amy said. "Are you sure it's safe to stop here?"

The Snow Scout who was wearing a sweater instead of a uniform turned his head quickly to the Hedges, as if he was going to

speak, but Max answered first. "It's safe now, kid," he said. "Years ago, apparently these mountains were crawling with bears. The bears were so intelligent that they were trained as soldiers. But they disappeared and no one knows why."

"Not bears," the scout in the sweater said, so quietly that the two Hedges had to lean in to hear him. "Lions lived in these caves. And they weren't soldiers. The lions were detectives – volunteer feline detectives." He turned so his mask was facing the two siblings, and the children knew he must be staring at them through the holes. "Volunteer Feline Detectives," he said again, and the Hedges almost gasped.

"Did you say – " Tails said, but the sweatered Snow Scout shook his head as if it was not safe to talk. Tails looked at his sister and then at the scout, wishing she could see both of their faces behind their masks. The initials of "Volunteer Feline Detectives," of course, spelled "V.F.D.," the name of the organization they were looking for. But were these initials a coincidence, as they had seemed to be so many times? Or was this mysterious scout giving them some sort of signal?

"I don't know what you kids are muttering about," Max said, "but stop it this instant. It's not time for conversation. It's Snow Scout Story Time, when one Snow Scout tells a story to the other Snow Scouts. Then we'll all eat marshmallows until we feel sick and go to sleep on a heap of blankets, just like we do every year. Why don't our new scouts tell the first story?"

"I should tell the first story," whined Sally. "After all, I'm the False Spring Queen."

"But I'm sure the travelers will have a wonderful story to tell," the sweatered scout said. "I'd love to hear a Very Fascinating Drama."

Amy saw her brother raise his hands to his head and smiled. She knew Tails had instinctively begun to tie his bangs up in a ribbon to help him think, but it was impossible to do so with a mask on. Both

the Hedge minds were racing to figure out a way to communicate with this mysterious scout, and the children were so lost in thought that they scarcely heard Sally Spats insulting them.

"Stop sitting around, cakesniffers," Sally said. "If you're going to tell us a story, get started."

"I'm sorry for the delay," Tails said, choosing his words as carefully as he could. "We haven't had a Very Fun Day, so it's difficult to think of a good story."

"I didn't realize this was a sad occasion," said the sweatered scout.

"Oh, yes," Amy said. "We've had nothing to eat all day except for some Vinegar-Flavored Doughnuts."

"And then there were the snow gnats," Tails said. "They behaved like Violent Frozen Dragonflies."

"When they form an arrow," Amy said, "they're more like a Voracious Fierce Dragon."

"Or a Vain Fat Dictator, I imagine," the scout in the sweater said, and gave the Hedges a masked nod as if he had received their message.

"This is the most boring story I have ever heard," Sally Spats said. "Uncle Max, tell these two that they're both cakesniffers."

"Well, it wouldn't be very accommodating to say so," Max said, "but I must admit that the story you were telling was a little dull, kids. When Snow Scouts tell stories, they skip everything boring and only tell the interesting parts. That way, the story can be as accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered as possible."

"I'll show these cakesniffers how to tell an interesting story,"

Sally said. "Once upon a time, I woke up and looked in the mirror, and there I saw the prettiest, smartest, most darling girl in the whole wide world. I put on a lovely pink dress to make myself look even prettier, and I skipped off to school where my teacher told me I looked more adorable than anyone she had ever seen in her entire life, and she gave me a lollipop as a special present. . ."

At this point, I will take a page from someone's book, a phrase which here means "adopt an idea used by somebody else." If, for instance, a man told you that the best way to write thank-you notes is to reward yourself with a cookie every time you finished one, you might take a page from his book, and have a plate of cookies nearby after your birthday or some other gift-giving occasion. If a girl told you that the best way to sneak out of the house late at night is to make sure everyone else is sound asleep, you might take a page from her book and mix a sleeping potion into everyone else's after-dinner coffee before climbing down the ivy that grows outside your bedroom window. And if you have been reading this miserable story, then the next time you find yourself in a similar situation, you might take a page from _The_ _Slippery Slope_ and use a combination of sticky substances and a drag chute to slow down a racing caravan, and then retrieve several articles of heavy clothing in order to protect yourself from the cold, and find a cave full of Snow Scouts gathered around a fire when the snow gnats begin to swarm.

But I will be taking a page from Max's book, when he suggested that a storyteller only tell the interesting parts of the story and skip everything boring. Certainly the two elder Hedges wished they could skip this boring part of their own story, as they were very eager to leave the cave and resume their search for their brother. But Tails and Amy knew that they shouldn't leave the cave until they could talk to the mysterious boy in the sweater, and that they couldn't talk to the mysterious boy in the sweater in front of Max and the other Snow Scouts, and so they sat by the fire as Sally Spats talked on and on about how pretty and smart and darling she

was and how everyone she met told her that she was unbelievably adorable. Although the Hedges had to sit through these tedious portions of their story, there is no reason for you to do so, and so I will skip ahead, past the tiresome details of Sally's endless story, and the senseless pledge that Max made everyone say several more times, and the all-marshmallow meal that the scouts shared with the two siblings. I will skip how irksome it was for Tails and Amy to turn away from the scouts, quickly lift their masks, and pop marshmallows into their mouths before covering their faces again so they would not be recognized. After their long, tiring journey, the children would have preferred a more substantial supper and a less complicated way of eating it, but the siblings could not skip these parts of their story, so they had to wait for the evening to pass and for all the other Snow Scouts to feel sick and arrange blankets into a large heap beside the Springpole. Even when Max led the Snow Scouts in one more alphabet pledge as a way of saying good night, Tails and Amy dared not get up and talk to the sweatered scout for fear of being overheard, and they had to wait for hours, too curious and anxious to sleep, as the fire died down and the cave echoed with the sounds of Snow Scout snoring.

But I will take a page from the book of the Snow Scout leader, and skip ahead to the next interesting thing that happened, which was very, very late at night, when so many interesting parts of stories happen and so many people miss them because they are asleep in their beds, or hiding in the broom closet of a mustard factory, disguised as a dustpan to fool the night watchwoman.

It was very late at night – in fact one might say that it was the darkest part of this dark day – and it was so late that the Hedges had almost given up on staying awake, particularly after such an exhausting day, but just as the two siblings were beginning to fall asleep, they each felt a hand touch them on the shoulder, and they quickly sat up and found themselves looking into the masked face of the sweatered scout. "Come with me, Hedges," the boy said in a very quiet voice. "I know a shortcut

to the headquarters," and this was an interesting part of the story indeed.

CHAPTER Five

When you have many questions on your mind, and you suddenly have an opportunity to ask them, the questions tend to crowd together and trip over one another, much like passengers on a crowded train when it reaches a popular station. With Max and the Snow Scouts asleep, the two elder Hedges finally had an opportunity to talk with the mysterious scout in the sweater, but everything they wanted to ask seemed hopelessly entangled.

"How – " Tails started, but the question "How did you know we were the Hedges?" stumbled against the question "Who are you?" and fell back against the questions "Are you a member of V.F.D.?" and "What does V.F.D. stand for?"

"Do – " Amy said, but the question "Do you know where our brother is?" tripped over the question "Do you know if one of our parents is alive?" which was already struggling with "How can we get to the headquarters?" and "Will my brothers and I ever find a safe place to live without constantly being threatened by Count Eggman and his troupe as they hatch plan after plan to steal the Hedge fortune?" although the middle Hedge knew that her last question was unlikely to be answered at all.

"I'm sure you have lots of questions," the boy whispered, "but we can't talk here. Max is a light sleeper, and he's caused V.F.D. enough trouble already without learning another of our secrets. I promise all your questions will be answered, but first we've got to get to the headquarters. Come with me."

Without another word, the sweatered scout turned around, and the Hedges saw he was wearing a backpack inscribed with an insignia they had seen at Caligari Carnival. At first glance, this

insignia merely appeared to be an eye, but the children had discovered that if you looked closely you could see the initials V.F.D., cleverly hidden in the drawing. The scout began to walk, and the two siblings got out of their blankets as quietly as they could and followed him. To their surprise, he did not lead them toward the cave entrance, but to the back of the cave, where the Snow Scouts' fire had been. Now it was nothing more than a pile of gray ashes, although it was still very warm, and the smell of smoke was still in the air. The sweatered scout reached into his pocket and brought out a flashlight. "I had to wait for the fire to die down before I showed you," he said, and with a nervous glance at the sleeping scouts, turned the flashlight on and shone it above them. "Look."

Tails and Amy looked, and saw that there was a hole in the ceiling, big enough for a person to crawl through. The last wisps of smoke from the fire were floating up into the hole. "A chimney," Amy murmured. "I was wondering why the fire didn't fill the cave with smoke."

"The official name is Vertical Flame Diversion," the scout whispered. "It serves as a chimney and as a secret passageway. It runs from this cave to the Valley of Four Drafts. If we climb up there, we can reach headquarters within hours, instead of hiking all the way up the mountain. Years ago, there was a metal pole that ran down the center of the hole, so people could slide down and hide in this cave in case of an emergency. The pole is gone now, but there should be carved toeholds in the sides to climb all the way up." He shone the flashlight on the cave wall, and sure enough, the Hedges could see two rows of small carved holes, perfect for sticking one's feet and hands into.

"How do you know all this?" Tails asked.

The scout looked at her for a moment, and it seemed to the Hedges that he was smiling behind his mask. "I read it," he said, "in a book called _Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains."_

"That sounds familiar," Amy said.

"It should," the scout replied. "I borrowed it from Dr.

Knuckles' library."

Dr. Knuckles was one of the Hedges' first guardians, and at the mention of his name Tails and Amy found they had several more questions they wanted to ask.

"When – " Tails started.

"Why – " Amy started.

"Carm – " Another voice startled the Hedges and the scout – the voice of Max, waking up halfway at the sound of the conversation. All three children froze for a moment, as Max turned over on his blanket, and with a long sigh, went back to sleep.

"We'll talk when we reach the headquarters " the scout whispered. "The Vertical Flame Diversion is very echoey, so we'll have to be absolutely silent as we climb, or the echoing noise will alert Max and the Snow Scouts. It'll be very dark inside, so you'll have to feel against the wall for the footholds, and the air will be smoky, but if you keep your masks on they'll filter the air and make it easier to breathe. I'll go first and lead the way. Are you ready? Oh and Tails I don't recommend flying up."

Tails and Amy turned toward one another. Even though they could not see each other's faces through the masks, both siblings knew that they were not at all ready. Following a complete stranger into a secret passageway through the center of the mountains, toward a headquarters they could not even be sure existed, did not seem like a very safe thing to do. The last time they had agreed to take a risky journey, their baby brother had been snatched away from them. What would happen this time, when they were all alone with a mysterious masked figure in a dark and smoky hole?

"I know it must be hard to trust me, Hedges," said the sweatered scout, "after so many people have done you wrong."

"Can you give us a reason to trust you?" Tails said.

The scout looked down for a moment, and then turned his mask to face both Hedges. "One of you mentioned the word 'xenial,'" he said, "when you were talking with Max about that silly pledge. 'Xenial' is a word which refers to the giving of gifts to a stranger."

"He's right," Amy murmured to her brother.

"I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person," the boy said. "But it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil."

Tails and Amy looked at one another through their masks.

Neither of them were entirely convinced by what the masked scout had said. There are, of course, plenty of evil people who have read a great many books, and plenty of very kind people who seem to have found some other method of spending their time. But the Hedges knew that there was a kind of truth to the boy's statement, and they had to admit that they preferred to take their chances with a stranger who knew what the word "xenial" meant, rather than exiting the cave and trying to find the headquarters all by themselves. So the siblings turned back to the scout, nodded their masks, and followed him to the footholds in the wall, making sure they still had all the items from the caravan with them. The footholds were surprisingly easy to use, and in a short time the Hedges were following the mysterious scout into the dark and smoky entrance of the passageway.

The Vertical Flame Diversion that connected the Mortmain Mountain headquarters to this particular Volunteer Feline Detectives cave was once one of the most heavily guarded secrets in the world. Anyone who wanted to use it had to correctly answer a series of questions concerning the force of gravity, the habits of carnivorous beasts, and the central themes of Russian novels, so very few people even knew the passageway's exact whereabouts. Until the two Hedges' journey, the passageway had not been used for many years, ever since one of my comrades removed the pole in

order to use it in the construction of a submarine. So it would be accurate to say that the Vertical Flame Diversion was a road less traveled – even less traveled than the path through the Mortmain Mountains on which this book began.

While the elder Hedges had a very good reason to be on the road less traveled, as they were in a great hurry to reach the headquarters and rescue their sister from the clutches of Count Eggman, there is no reason whatsoever why you should be on the road less traveled and choose to read the rest of this woeful chapter, which describes their dark and smoky journey.

The ashen air from the Snow Scouts' fire was difficult to breathe, even through the masks, and Tails and Amy had to struggle not to cough, knowing that the coughing sound would echo down the passageway and wake up Max, but there is no reason for you to struggle through my dismal description of this problem. A number of spiders had noticed the footholds were not being used lately, and had moved in and converted them into spider condominiums, but you are under no obligation to read what happens when spiders are suddenly woken up by the sudden appearance of a climbing foot in their new homes. And as the Hedges followed the scout farther and farther up, the strong freezing winds from the top of the mountain would rush through the passageway, and all three youngsters would cling to the footholds with their very lives, hoping that the wind would not blow them back down to the cave floor, but although the Hedges found it necessary to keep climbing through the rest of the dark day so they could reach the headquarters as quickly as possible, and I find it necessary to finish describing it, so my account of the Hedge case is as accurate and as complete as possible, it is not necessary for you to finish reading the rest of this chapter, so you can be as miserable as possible. My description of the Hedges' journey up through the road less traveled begins on the next page, but I beg you not to travel along with them. Instead, you may take a page from Max's book, and skip ahead to Chapter Six, and find my report on Sonic

Hedge's tribulations – a word which here means "opportunities to eavesdrop while cooking for a theater troupe" – with Count Eggman, or you may skip ahead to Chapter Seven, when the elder Hedges arrive at the site of the V.F.D. headquarters and unmask the stranger who led them there, or you may take the road very frequently traveled and skip away from this book altogether, and find something better to do with your time besides finishing this unhappy tale and becoming a weary, weeping, and well-read person.

The Hedges' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write "The Hedges' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write 'The Hedges' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write "The Hedges' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write 'The Hedges' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write _"My_ _dear_ _sister,_ I am taking a great risk in hiding a letter to you inside one of my books, but I am certain that even the most melancholy and

well-read people in the world have found my account of the lives of the three Hedge children even more wretched than I had promised, and so this book will stay on the shelves of libraries, utterly ignored, waiting for you to open it and find this message. As an additional precaution, I placed a warning that the rest of this chapter contains a description of the Hedges' miserable journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion, so anyone who has the courage to read such a description is probably brave enough to read my letter to you. I have at last learned the whereabouts of the evidence that will exonerate me, a phrase which here means "prove to the authorities that it is Count Eggman, and not me, who has started so many fires." Your suggestion, so many years ago at that picnic, that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small in the event of a dark day, has turned out to be correct.

(Incidentally, your other picnic suggestion, that a simple combination of sliced mango, green olives, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil would make a delicious chilled salad also turned out to be correct.)

I am on my way now to the Valley of Four Drafts, in order to continue my research on the Hedge case. I hope also to retrieve the aforementioned evidence at last. It is too late to restore my happiness, of course, but at least I can clear my name. From the site of V.F.D. headquarters, I will head straight for the Hotel Denouement. I should arrive by – well, it wouldn't be wise to type the date, but it should be easy for you to remember Cream's birthday. Meet me at the hotel. Try to get us a room without ugly curtains.

 _With all due respect,_ Lemony Snicket

P.S. If you substitute the chopped celery with hearts of palm, it is equally delicious.

CHAPTER

 **Six**

In the very early hours of the morning, while the two elder Hedges struggled to find their footing as they climbed up the Vertical Flame Diversion – and I sincerely hope that you did not read the description of that journey – the youngest Hedge found himself struggling with a different sort of footing altogether. Sonic had not enjoyed the long, cold night on Mount Fraught. If you have ever slept in a covered casserole dish on the highest peak of a mountain range, then you know that it is an uncomfortable place to lay one's head, even if you find a dishtowel inside it that can serve as a blanket. All night long, the chilly mountain winds blew through the tiny holes inside the top of the cover, making it so cold inside the dish that Sonic's enormous teeth chattered all night, giving him tiny cuts on his lips and making such a loud noise that it was impossible to sleep. Finally, when the first rays of the morning sun shone through the holes and made it warm enough to doze, Count Eggman left his tent and kicked open the cover of the dish to begin ordering Sonic around. "Wake up, you dentist's nightmare and athletes coach!" he cried. Sonic opened one exhausted eye and found himself staring at the villain's footing, particularly the tattoo on Eggman's left ankle, a sight that was enough to make her wish her eyes were still closed.

Tattooed on Eggman's ankle was the image of an eye, and it seemed to Sonic that this eye had been watching the Hedges throughout all of their troubles, from the day on Briny Beach when they learned of the terrible fire that destroyed their home. Time

after time, Count Eggman had tried to hide this eye so the authorities would not recognize him, so the children were always uncovering it from behind his ridiculous disguises, and the Hedges had begun seeing the eye in other places, such as at the office of an evil hypnotist, on the side of a carnival tent, on Eudora Squalor's purse, and on a necklace owned by a mysterious fortune-teller. It was almost as if this eye had replaced the eyes of their parents, but instead of keeping watch over the children and making sure that they were safe from harm, this eye merely gave them a blank stare, as if it did not care about the children's troubles, or could do nothing about them. If you looked very closely, you could find the letters V.F.D. half-hidden in the eye, and this reminded Sonic of all the sinister secrets that surrounded the three siblings, and how far they were from understanding the web of mystery in which they found themselves. But it is hard to think about mysteries and secrets first thing in the morning, particularly if someone is yelling at you, and Sonic turned her attention to what her captor was saying.

"You'll be doing all the cooking and cleaning for us, orphan," Count Eggman said, "and you can start by making us breakfast. We have a big day ahead of us, and a good breakfast will give me and my troupe the energy we need to perform unspeakable crimes."

"Plakna?" Sonic asked, which meant "How am I supposed to cook breakfast on the top of a freezing mountain?" but Count Eggman just gave her a nasty smile.

"Too bad your brain isn't as big as your teeth, you little monkey," he said. "You're talking nonsense, as usual."

Sonic sighed, frustrated that there was no one on top of the Mortmain Mountains who understood what she was trying to say. "Translo," she said, which meant "Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it's nonsense."

"There you go, babbling again," Eggman said, and tossed Sonic the car keys. "Get the groceries out of the trunk of the car and get to work."

Sonic suddenly thought of something that might cheer her up a little bit. "Sneakitawc," she said, which was her way of saying "Of course, because you don't understand me, I can say anything I want to you, and you'll have no idea what I'm talking about."

"I'm getting quite tired of your ridiculous speech impediment," Count Eggman said.

"Brummel," Sonic said, which meant "In my opinion, you desperately need a bath, and your clothing is a shambles."

"Be quiet this instant," Eggman ordered.

"Busheney," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "You're an evil man with no concern whatsoever for other people."

"Shut up!" Count Eggman roared. "Shut up and get cooking!"

Sonic got out of the casserole dish and stood up, looking down at the snowy ground so the villain would not see she was smiling. It is not nice to tease people, of course, but the youngest Hedge felt that it was all right to enjoy a joke at the expense of such a murderous and evil man, and she walked to Eggman's car with a spring in her step, a phrase which here means "in a surprisingly cheerful manner considering she was in the clutches of a ruthless villain on top of a mountain so cold that even the nearby waterfall was frozen solid."

But when Sonic Hedge opened the trunk of the car her smile faded. Under normal circumstances, it is not safe to keep groceries in the trunk of a car for an extended period of time, because some foods will spoil without being refrigerated. But Sonic saw that the temperatures of the Mortmain Mountains had caused the groceries to become over-refrigerated. A thin layer of frost covered every item, and Sonic had to crawl inside and wipe the frost off with his bare hands to see what he might make for the troupe. There was a variety of well-chilled food that Eggman had stolen from the carnival, but none of it seemed like the makings of a good breakfast. There

was a bag of coffee beans beneath a harpoon gun and a frozen hunk of spinach, but there was no way to grind the beans into tiny pieces to make coffee. Near a picnic basket, a jar with half a dozen green olives and a large bag of mushrooms was a jug of orange juice, but it had been close to one of the bullet holes in the trunk, and so had frozen completely solid in the cold.

And after Sonic moved aside three chunks of cold cheese, a large can of water chestnuts, and an eggplant as big as herself, she finally found a small jar of boysenberry jam, and a loaf of bread she could use to make toast, although it was so cold it felt more like a log than a breakfast ingredient.

"Wake up!" Sonic peeked out of the trunk and saw Count Eggman calling through the door of one of the tents he had assembled. "Wake up and get dressed for breakfast!"

"Can't we sleep ten minutes more?" asked the whiny voice of the hook-handed fox. "I was having a lovely dream about sneezing without covering my nose and mouth, and giving everybody germs."

"Absolutely not!" Eggman replied. "I have lots of work for you to do."

"But Eggman," said Eudora Squalor, emerging from the tent she had shared with Count Eggman. Her hair was in curlers and she was wearing a long robe and a pair of fuzzy slippers. "I need a little while to choose what I'm going to wear. It's not in to burn down a headquarters without wearing a fashionable outfit."

Sonic gasped in the trunk. he had known that Eggman was eager to reach the V.F.D. headquarters as soon as possible, in order to get his hands on the rest of some crucial evidence, but it had not occurred to him that he would combine this evidence-grabbing with his usual pyromania, a word which here means "a love of fire, usually the product of a deranged mind."

"I can't imagine why you need all this time," was Count Eggman's grumpy reply to his girlfriend. "After all, I wear the same outfit for weeks at a time, except when I'm in disguise, and I look almost unbearably handsome. Well, I suppose you have a few minutes

before breakfast is ready. Slow service is one of the disadvantages of having infants for slaves." Eggman strode over to the car and peered in at Sonic, who was still clutching the loaf of bread.

"Hurry up, bigmouth," he growled at Sonic. "I need a nice hot meal to take the chill out of the morning."

"Unfeasi!" Sonic cried. By "Unfeasi" he meant "To make a hot meal without any electricity, I'd need a fire, and expecting a baby to start a fire all by himself on top of a snowy mountain is cruelly impossible and impossibly cruel," but Eggman merely frowned.

"Your baby talk is really beginning to annoy me," he said.

"Hygiene," Sonic said, to make himself feel better. he meant something along the lines of, "Additionally, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for wearing the same outfit for weeks at a time without washing," but Eggman merely scowled at him and walked back into his tent.

Sonic looked at the cold ingredients and tried to think. Even if he had been old enough to start a fire by himself, Sonic had been nervous around flames since the fire that had destroyed the Hedge mansion. But as he thought of the fire that destroyed his own home, he remembered something his mother had told him once. They had both been busy in the kitchen – Sonic's mother was busy preparing for a fancy luncheon, and Sonic was busy dropping a fork on the floor over and over again to see what sort of sound it made. The luncheon was due to start any minute, and Sonic's mother was quickly mixing up a salad of sliced mango, green olives, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil.

"This isn't a very complicated recipe, Sonic," her mother had said, "but if I arrange the salad very nicely on fancy plates, people will think I've been cooking all day. Often, when cooking, the presentation of the food can be as important as the food itself." Thinking of what his mother had said, he opened the picnic basket

in Eggman's trunk and found that it contained a set of elegant plates, each emblazoned with the familiar eye insignia, and a small tea set. Then he rolled up his sleeves – an expression which here means "focused very hard on the task at hand, but did not actually roll up her sleeves, because it was very cold on the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains" – and got to work as Count Eggman and his comrades started their day.

"I'll use these blankets for a tablecloth," Sonic heard Eggman say in the tent, over the sound her own teeth were making.

"Good idea," he heard Eudora reply. "It's very in to dine _al_ _fresco."_

"What does that mean?" Eggman asked.

"It means 'outside,' of course," Eudora explained. "It's fashionable to eat your meals in the fresh air."

"I knew what it meant," Count Eggman replied. "I was just testing you."

"Hey boss," Scourge called from the next tent. "Rosy won't share the dental floss."

"There's no reason to use dental floss," Count Eggman said, "unless you're trying to strangle someone with a very weak neck."

"Miles, would you do me a favor?" the hook-handed fox asked, as Sonic struggled to open the jug of juice. "Will you help me comb my hair? These hooks can make it difficult sometimes."

"I'm jealous of your hooks," Miles replied. "Having no hands is better than having two equally strong hands."

"Don't be ridiculous," one of the white-faced women replied. "Having a white face is worse than both of your situations."

"But you have a white face because you put makeup on," Rosy said, as Sonic climbed back out of the trunk and knelt down in the snow. "You're putting powder on your face right now."

"Must you bicker every single morning?" Count Eggman asked, and

stomped back out of his tent carrying a blanket covered in images of eyes. "Somebody take this blanket and set the table over there on that flat rock."

Scourge walked out of the tent and smiled at his new boss. "I'd be happy to," he said.

Eudora stepped outside, having changed into a bright red snowsuit, and put her arm around Eggman. "Fold the blanket into a large triangle," she said to Scourge . "That's the in way to do it."

"Yes ma'am," Scourge said, "and, if you don't mind my saying so, that's a very handsome snowsuit you are wearing."

The villainous girlfriend turned all the way around to show off her outfit from every angle. Sonic looked up from her cooking and noticed that the letter C was sewn onto the back of it, along with the eye insignia. "I'm glad you like it, Scourge ," Eudora said. "It's stolen."

Count Eggman glanced at Sonic and quickly stepped in front of his girlfriend. "What are you staring at, toothy?" he asked. "Are you done making breakfast?"

"Almost," Sonic replied.

"That infant never makes any sense," Scourge said. "No wonder he fooled us into thinkine she was a carnival freak."

Sonic sighed, but no one heard her over the scornful laughter of Eggman's troupe. One by one, the villain's wretched employees emerged from the tent and strolled over to the flat rock where Scourge was laying out the blanket. The white-faced women glanced at Sonic and gave him a small smile, but nobody offered to help him finish with the breakfast preparations, or even to set the table with the eye-patterned dishes. Instead, they gathered around the rock talking and laughing until Sonic carefully carried the breakfast over to them, arranged on a large eye-shaped tray that he'd found in the bottom of the picnic basket. Although he was still frightened to be in Eggman's clutches and worried about his siblings, Sonic could not

help but be a little proud as Count Eggman and his comrades looked at the meal he had prepared.

Sonic had kept in mind what his mother had said about presentation being as important as the food itself, and managed to put together a lovely breakfast despite the difficult circumstances. First, she had opened the jug of frozen orange juice and used a small spoon to chip away at the ice until he had a large heap of juice shavings, which he arranged into tiny piles on each plate to make orange granita, a cold and delicious concoction that is often served at fancy dinner parties and masked balls. Then, Sonic had rinsed his mouth out with melted snow so it would be as clean as possible, and chopped some of the coffee beans with his teeth. He placed a bit of the ground coffee inside each cup and combined it with more snow he had melted in his own hands to make iced coffee, a delicious beverage I first enjoyed when visiting Thailand to interview a taxi driver. Meanwhile, the youngest Hedge had put the chilled bread underneath his shirt to warm it up, and when it was warm enough to eat he put one slice on each plate, and using a small spoon, spread some boysenberry jam on each piece of bread. he did her best to spread the jam in the shape of an eye, to please the villains who would be eating it, he also put a couple of olives on toothpicks that he found scattered all over the trunk and as a finishing touch he found a bouquet of ivy, which Count Eggman had given his girlfriend not so long ago, and placed it in the small pitcher of the tea set used for cream. There was no cream, but the ivy would help the presentation of the food by serving as a centerpiece, a word which here means "a decoration placed in the middle of a table, often used to distract people from the food." Of course, orange granita and iced coffee are not often served at _al_ _fresco_ breakfasts on cold mountain peaks, and bread with jam is more traditionally prepared as toast, but without a source of heat or any other cooking equipment, and olives arnt usually served for breakfast. Sonic had done the best he could, and he hoped that Eggman and his troupe might appreciate his efforts.

"Caffefredde, sorbet, toast tartar, olive," he announced.

"What is this?" Count Eggman said suspiciously, peering into his coffee cup. "It looks like coffee, but it's freezing cold!"

"And what is this orange stuff?" Eudora asked suspiciously. "I want fashionable, in food, not a handful of ice!"

Rosy picked up a piece of the bread and stared at it suspiciously. "This toast feels raw," she said. "Is it safe to eat raw toast?"

"Of course not," Scourge said. "I bet that baby is trying to poison us."

"Actually, the coffee isn't bad," one of the white-faced women said, "even if it is a little bitter. Could someone pass the sugar, please?"

 _'Sugar?"_ shrieked Count Eggman, erupting in anger. He stood up, grabbed one end of the blanket, and pulled as hard as he could, scattering all of Sonic's hard work. Food, beverages, and dishes fell everywhere, and Sonic had to duck to avoid getting hit on the head with a flying fork. "All the sugar in the world couldn't save this terrible breakfast!" he roared, and then leaned down so that his shiny, shiny eyes stared right into Sonic's. "I told you to make a nice, hot breakfast, and you gave me cold, disgusting nonsense!" he said, his smelly breath making a cloud in the chilly air. "Don't you see how high up we are, you sabertoothed papoose? If I threw you off Mount Fraught, you'd never survive!"

"Eggman!" Eudora said. "I'm surprised at you! Surely you remember that we'll never get the Hedge fortune if we toss Sonic off the mountain. We have to keep Sonic alive for the greater good."

"Yes, yes," Count Eggman said. "I remember. I'm not going to throw the orphan off the mountain. I just wanted to terrify him." He gave Sonic a cruel smirk, and then turned to the hook-handed fox. "Walk over to that frozen waterfall," he said, "and crack a hole in the ice with your hook. The stream is full of Stricken Salmon. Catch enough for all of us, and we'll have the baby prepare us a proper meal."

"Good idea, Eggman," the hook-handed fox said, standing up and walking toward the icy slope. "You're as smart as you are intelligent."

"Sakesushi," Sonic said quietly, which meant "I don't think you'll enjoy salmon if it's not cooked."

"Stop your baby talk and wash these dishes," Eggman ordered. "They're covered in lousy food."

"You know, Eggman," said the white-faced woman who had asked for sugar, "it's none of my business, but we might put someone else in charge of cooking. It was probably difficult for a baby to prepare a hot breakfast without a fire."

"But there is a fire," said a deep, low voice, and everyone turned around to see who had arrived.

Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do it makes you want to hide under the coffee table. An aura of menace is simply a distinct feeling of evil that accompanies the arrival of certain people, and very few individuals are evil enough to produce an aura of menace that is very strong. Count Eggman, for example, had an aura of menace that the three Hedges had felt the moment they met him, but a number of other people never seemed to sense that a villain was in their midst, even when Eggman was standing right next to them with an evil gleam in his eye. But when two visitors arrived at the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains, their aura of menace was unmistakable. Sonic gasped when he saw them. Eudora Squalor shuddered in her snowsuit. The members of Eggman's troupe – all except the hook-handed fox, who was busy fishing for salmon and so was lucky enough to miss the visitors' arrival – gazed down at the snowy ground rather than take a further look at them. Count Eggman himself looked a bit nervous as the man, the woman, and their aura of menace drew closer and closer. And even I, after all this time, can feel their aura of menace so strongly, just by writing about these two people, that I dare not say their names, and will

instead refer to them the way everyone who dares refer to them refers to them, as "the man with a beard, but no hair" and "the woman with hair, but no beard."

"It's good to see you, Eggman," continued the deep voice, and Sonic realized that the voice belonged to the sinister-looking woman. She was dressed in a suit made of a strange blue fabric that was very shiny, decorated with two large pads, one on each shoulder. She was dragging a wooden toboggan – a word which here means "a sled big enough to hold several people," which made an eerie scraping sound against the cold ground. "I was worried that the authorities might have captured you."

"You look well," said the man with a beard but no hair. He was dressed identically to the woman with hair but no beard, but his voice was very hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours and could hardly talk. "It's been a long time since we've laid eyes on one another." The man gave Eggman a grin that made it seem even colder on the mountain peak, and then stopped and helped the woman lean the toboggan against the rock where Sonic had served breakfast. The youngest Hedge saw that the toboggan was painted with the familiar eye insignia, and had a few long leather straps, presumably used for steering.

Count Eggman coughed lightly into his hand, which is something people often do when they cannot think of what to say. "He….He…..He…..Hel….Hell…Hello," he said, a nervously. "Did I hear you say something about a fire?"

The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard looked at one another and shared a laugh that made Sonic cover his ears with his hands. "Haven't you noticed," the woman said, "that there are no snow gnats around?"

"We had noticed that," Eudora said. "I thought maybe snow gnats were no longer in."

"Don't be ridiculous, Eudora," said the man with a beard but no hair. He reached out and kissed Eudora's hand, which Sonic could see

was trembling. "The gnats aren't around because they can smell the smoke."

"I don't smell anything," said Scourge .

"Well, if you were a tiny insect, you'd smell something," replied the woman with hair but no beard. "If you were a snow gnat, you'd smell the smoke from the V.F.D. headquarters."

"We did you a favor, Eggman," the man said. "We burned the entire place down."

"No!" Sonic cried, before he could stop herself. By "No!" he meant "I certainly hope that isn't true, because my siblings and I hoped to reach V.F.D. headquarters, solve the mysteries that surround us, and perhaps find one of our parents," but he had not planned to say it out loud. The two visitors looked down at the youngest Hedge, casting their aura of menace in her direction.

"What is that?" asked the man with a beard but no hair.

"That's the youngest Hedge," replied Eudora. "We've eliminated the other two, but we're keeping this one around to do our bidding until we can finally steal the fortune."

The woman with hair but no beard nodded. "Infant servants are so troublesome," she said. "I had an infant servant once – a long time ago, before the schism."

"Be….be….before the schism?" Eggman said, and Sonic wished Amy were with him, because the baby did not know what the word "schism" meant. "That _is_ a long time ago. That infant must be all grown up by now."

"Not necessarily," the woman said, and laughed again, while her companion leaned down to gaze at Sonic. Sonic could not bear to look into the eyes of the man with a beard but no hair, and instead looked down at his shiny shoes.

"So this is Sonic Hedge," he said in his strange, hoarse voice. "Well, well, well. I've heard so much about this little orphan. He's caused almost as many problems as her parents did." He stood up

again and looked around at Eggman and his troupe. "But we know how to solve problems, don't we? Fire can solve any problem in the world."

He began to laugh, and the woman with hair but no beard laughed along with him. Nervously, Count Eggman began to laugh, too, and then glared at his troupe until they laughed along with him, and Sonic found herself surrounded by tall, laughing villains. "Oh, it was wonderful," said the woman with hair but no beard. "First we burned down the kitchen. Then we burned down the dining room. Then we burned down the parlor, and then the disguise center, the movie room, and the stables. Then we moved on to the gymnasium and the training center, and the garage and all six of the laboratories.

We burned down the dormitories and schoolrooms, the lounge, the theater, the running track and football field, the balcony, the dark room, the art studio and the music room, observatory, television room, ballroom, bowling ally, the sick room, the hospital, the store room, the games room, the arcade, as well as the museum and the ice cream shop. Then we burned down the rehearsal studios and the testing centers and the swimming pool, which was very hard to burn down. Then we burned down all the bathrooms, the computer room, the garden, the gazebos, the bar, the powder room, and then finally, we burned down the V.F.D. library last night. That was my favorite part

– books and books and books, all turned to ashes so no one could read them. You should have been there, Eggman! Every morning we lit fires and every evening we celebrated with a bottle of wine and some finger puppets. We've been wearing these fireproof suits for almost a month. It's been a marvelous time."

"Why did you burn it down gradually?" Count Eggman asked. "Whenever I burn something down, I do it all at once."

"We couldn't have burned down the entire headquarters at once," said the man with a beard but no hair. "Someone would have spotted us. Remember, where there's smoke there's fire."

"But if you burned the headquarters down room by room," Eudora said, "didn't all of the volunteers escape?"

"They were gone already," said the man, and scratched his head where his hair might have been. "The entire headquarters were deserted. It was as if they knew we were coming. Oh well, you can't

win them all."

"Maybe we'll find some of them when we burn down the carnival," said the woman, in her deep, deep voice.

"C…C…C….C….C….Carnival?" Eggman asked nervously.

"Yes," the woman said, and scratched the place where her beard would have been, if she had one. "There's an important piece of evidence that V.F.D. has hidden in a figurine sold at Caligari Carnival, so we need to go burn it down."

"I burned it down already," Count Eggman said. "The whole place?" the woman said in surprise.

"The whole place," Eggman said, giving her a nervous smile.

"Congratulations," she said, in a deep purr. "You're better than I thought, Eggman."

Count Eggman looked relieved, as if he had not been sure whether the woman was going to compliment him or kick him. "Well, it's all for the greater good," he said.

"As a reward," the woman said, "I have a gift for you, Eggman." Sonic watched as the woman reached into the pocket of her shiny suit and drew out a stack of paper, tied together with thick rope.

The paper looked very old and worn, as if it had been passed around to a variety of different people, hidden in a number of secret compartments, and perhaps even divided into different piles, driven around a city in horse-drawn carriages, and then put back together at midnight in the back room of a bookstore disguised as a cafe disguised as a sporting goods store. Count Eggman's eyes grew very wide and very shiny, and he reached his filthy hands toward it if it were the Hedge fortune itself.

"The Snicket file!" he said, in a hushed whisper.

"It's all here," the woman said. "Every chart, every map and every photograph from the only file that could put us all in jail."

"It's complete except for page thirteen, of course," the man said. "We understand that the Hedges managed to steal that page from Heimlich Hospital."

The two visitors glared down at Sonic Hedge, who couldn't help whimpering in fear. "Surchmi," she said. She meant something along the lines of, "I don't have it – my siblings do," but she did not need a translator.

"The older orphans have it," Eggman said, "but I'm fairly certain they're dead."

"Then all of our problems have gone up in smoke," said the woman with hair but no beard.

Count Eggman grabbed the file and held it to his chest as if it were a newborn baby, although he was not the sort of person to treat a newborn baby very kindly. "This is the most wonderful gift in the world," he said. "I'm going to go read it right now."

"We'll all read it together," said the woman with hair but no beard. "It contains secrets we all ought to know."

"But first," said the man with a beard but no hair, "I have a gift for your girlfriend, Eggman."

"For me?" Eudora asked.

"I found these in one of the rooms of headquarters," the man said. "I've never seen one before, but it has been quite some time since I was a volunteer." With a sly smile, he reached into his pocket and took out a small green tube.

"What's that?" Eudora asked.

"I think it's a cigarette," the man said.

"A cigarette!" Eudora said, with a smile as big as Eggman's. "How in!" "I thought you'd enjoy them," the man said. "Here, try it. I

happen to have quite a few matches right here."

The man with a beard but no hair struck a match, lit the end of the green tube, and offered it to the wicked girlfriend, who grabbed it and held it to her mouth. A bitter smell, like that of burning vegetables, filled the air, and Eudora Squalor began to cough.

"What's the matter?" asked the woman in her deep voice. "I thought you liked things that are in."

"I do," Eudora said, and then coughed quite a bit more. Sonic was reminded of Mr. Silver Poe, who was always coughing into a handkerchief, as Eudora coughed and coughed and finally dropped the green tube to the ground where it spewed out a dark green smoke. "I love cigarettes," she explained to the man with a beard but no hair, "but I prefer to smoke them with a long holder because I don't like the smell or taste and because they're very bad for you."

"Never mind that now," Count Eggman said impatiently. "Let's go into my tent and read the file." He started to walk toward the tent but stopped and glared at his comrades, who were beginning to follow him. "The rest of you stay out here," he said. "There are secrets in this file that I do not want you to know."

The two sinister visitors began to laugh, and followed Count Eggman and Eudora into the tent closing the flap behind them. Sonic stood with Scourge , Rosy, Miles, and the two white-faced women and stared after them in silence, waiting for the aura of menace to disappear.

"Who were those people?" asked the hook-handed fox, and everyone turned to see that he had returned from his fishing expedition. Four salmon hung from each of his hooks, dripping with the waters of the Stricken Stream.

"I don't know," said one of the white-faced women, "but they made me very nervous."

"If they're friends of Count Eggman's," Miles said, "how bad could they be?"

The members of the troupe looked at one another, but no one answered the ambidextrous person's question. "What did that man mean when he said 'Where there's smoke there's fire'?" Scourge asked.

"I don't know," Rosy said. A chilly wind blew, and Sonic watched her contort her body in the breeze until it looked almost as curvy as the smoke from the green tube Eudora had dropped.

"Forget those questions," the hook-handed fox said. "My question is, how are you going to prepare this salmon, orphan?"

Eggman's henchman was looking down at Sonic, but the youngest Hedge did not answer for a moment. Sonic was thinking, and his siblings would have been proud of him for the way he was thinking. Amy would have been proud, because he was thinking about the phrase "Where there's smoke there's fire," and what it might mean. And Tails would have been proud, because he was thinking about the salmon that the hook-handed fox was holding, and what he might invent that would help him.

Sonic stared at the hook-handed fox and thought as hard as he could, and he felt almost as if both siblings were with him, Amy helping him think about a phrase and Tails helping him think about an invention.

"Answer me, baby," the hook-handed fox growled. "What are you going to make for us out of this salmon?"

"Lox!" Sonic said, but it was as if all three of the Hedges had answered the question.

CHAPTER Seven

An associate of mine once wrote a novel called _Corridors_ _of_ _Power,_ which told the story of various people discussing how the world has become a corrupt and dangerous place and whether or not there are enough people with the integrity and decency necessary to keep the entire planet from descending into despair. I have not read this novel in several years, because I participate in enough discussions on how the world has become a corrupt and dangerous place and whether or not there are enough people with the integrity and decency necessary to keep the entire planet from descending into despair without reading about it in my leisure time, but nevertheless the phrase "corridors of power" has come to mean the hushed and often secret places where important matters are discussed. Whether or not they are actual corridors, the corridors of power tend to feel quiet and mysterious. If you have ever walked inside an important building, such as the main branch of a library or the office of a dentist who has agreed to disguise your teeth, then you may have experienced this feeling that accompanies the corridors of power, and Tails and Amy Hedge experienced it as they reached the end of the Vertical Flame Diversion, and followed the mysterious sweatered scout as he climbed out of the secret passageway. Even through their masks, the two siblings could sense that they were in an important place, even though it was nothing more than a dim, curved hallway with a small grate on the ceiling where the morning light was shining through.

"That's where the smoke escapes from the Snow Scouts' fire,"

whispered the mysterious scout, pointing up at the ceiling. "That leads to the very center of the Valley of Four Drafts, so the smoke is scattered to the four winds. V.F.D. doesn't want anyone to see the smoke."

"Where there's smoke," Tails said, "there's fire."

"Exactly," the scout said. "Anyone who saw smoke coming from this high up in the mountains might become suspicious and investigate. In fact, I found a device that works exactly according to this principle." He reached into his backpack and drew out a small rectangular box filled with small green tubes, exactly like the one that Sonic had seen the man with a beard but no hair give to Eudora Squalor.

"No thank you," Amy said. "I don't smoke."

"I don't, either," the scout said, "but these aren't cigarettes. These are Verdant Flammable Devices. Verdant means 'green,' so when you light one, it gives out a dark green smoke, so another volunteer will know where you are."

Amy took the box from the scout and squinted at it in the dim light. "I've seen a box like this before," he said, "in my father's desk, when I was looking for a letter opener. I remember thinking it was strange to find them, because he didn't smoke."

"He must have been hiding them," Tails said. "Why was he keeping them a secret?"

"The entire organization is a secret," the scout said. "It was very difficult for me to learn the secret location of the headquarters."

"It was difficult for us, too," Amy said. "We found it in a coded map."

"I had to draw my own map," the scout said, and reached into a pocket in his sweater. He turned on the flashlight, and the two Hedges could see he was holding a notebook with a dark red cover.

"What's that?" Tails asked.

"It's a commonplace book," the scout said. "Whenever I find something that seems important or interesting, I write it down. That way, all my important information is in one place."

"I should start one," Amy said. "My pockets are bulging with scraps of paper."

"From information I read in Dr. Knuckles's book, and a few others," the scout said, "I managed to draw a map of where to go from here." He opened the dark red notebook and flipped a few pages until he reached a small but elegant rendering of the cave, the Vertical Flame Diversion, and the hallway in which they were standing now. "As you can see," he said, running his finger along the hallway, "the passageway branches off in two directions."

"This is a very well-drawn map," Tails said.

"Thank you," the scout replied. "I've been interested in cartography for quite some time. See, if we go to the left, there's a small area used for sled and snowsuit storage, at least according to a newspaper article I found. But if we go right, we'll arrive at the Vernacularly Fastened Door, which should open onto the headquarters' kitchen. We might walk in on the entire organization having breakfast."

The two Hedges looked at one another through their masks, and Tails put a hand on her brother's shoulder. They did not dare to say out loud their hope that one of their parents might be just around the corner. "Let's go," Tails whispered.

The scout nodded silently in agreement, and led the Hedges down the hallway, which seemed to get colder and colder with every step. By now they were so far from Max and the Snow Scouts that there was no need to whisper, but all three children kept quiet as they walked down the dim, curved hallway, hushed by the feeling of the corridors of power. At last they reached a large metal door with a strange device where the doorknob should have been. The device

looked a bit like a spider, with curly wires spreading out in all directions, but where the head of the spider might have been as the keyboard of a typewriter. Even in her excitement to see the headquarters, Tails' inventing mind was interested in such a device, and he leaned closer to see what it was.

"Wait," the sweatered scout said, reaching his arm out to stop her. "This is a coded lock. If we don't operate it properly, we won't be able to get into the headquarters."

"How does it work?" Tails said, shivering slightly in the cold.

"I'm not sure," the scout admitted, and took out his commonplace book again. "It's called the Vernacularly Fastened Door, so – "

"So it operates on language," Amy finished. "Vernacular is a word for 'a local language or dialect.'"

"Of course," Tails said. "See how the wires are curled around the hinges of the door? They're locked in place, unless you type in the right sequence of letters on that keyboard. There are more letters than numbers, so it would be more difficult for someone to guess the combination of the lock."

"That's what I read," the scout confirmed looking at a page in his notebook. "You're supposed to type in three specific phrases in a row. The phrases change every season, so volunteers need to have a lot of information at their fingertips to use this door. The first is the name of the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity."

"That's easy," Tails said, and typed in

S-I-R-I-S-A-A-C-N-E-W-T-O-N, the name of a physicist he had always admired. When he was finished, there was a muted clicking sound from the typewriter keyboard, as if the device was warming up.

"The second is the Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives," the scout said. "I found the answer in _Remarkable_

 _Phenomena_ _of_ _the Mortmain Mountains._ It's _Panthera_ _leo."_ He leaned forward and typed in P-A-N-T-H-E-R-A-L-E-O. There was a very quiet buzzing and and the children saw that the wires near the hinges were shaking very slightly.

"It's beginning to unlock," Tails said. "I hope I get a chance to study this invention."

"Let's get to the headquarters first," Amy said. "What's the third phrase?"

The scout sighed, and turned a page in the commonplace book. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Another volunteer told me that it's the central theme of Leo Tolstoy's novel _Anna Karenina,_ but I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

Tails knew that his sister was smiling, even though he could not see her face through the mask. He was remembering one summer, very long ago, when Amy was very young and Sonic was not even conceived. Every summer, the Hedges' mother would read a very long book, joking that lifting a large novel was the only exercise he liked to get during the hot months. During the time Tails was thinking of, Mrs. Hedge chose _Anna_ _Karenina_ for her summer reading, and Amy would sit on his mother's lap for hours at a time while she read the middle Hedge had not been reading very long, but their mother helped her with the big words and would occasionally stop reading to explain what had happened in the story, and in this way Amy and her mother read the story of Ms. Karenina, whose boyfriend treats her so poorly that she throws herself under a train. Tails had spent most of that summer studying the laws of thermodynamics and building a miniature airplane out of an eggbeater, a yoyo, a canister and some old copper wiring, but he knew that Amy must remember the central theme of the book she read on her mother's lap.

"The central theme of _Anna_ _Karenina"_ she said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to

tragedy."

"That's a very long theme," the scout said.

"It's a very long book," Amy replied. "But I can work quickly. My brothers and I once tapped out a long telegram in no time at all."

"Too bad that telegram never arrived," the scout said quietly, but the middle Hedge was already pressing the keys on the Vernacularly Fastened Door. As Amy typed the words "a rural life," a phrase which here means "living in the country," the wires began to curl and uncurl very quickly, like worms on a sidewalk after it has rained, and by the time Amy was typing "the preferable personal narrative," a phrase which here means "the way to live your life," the entire door was quivering as if it were as nervous as the Hedges. Finally, Amy typed "T-R-A-G-E-D-Y," and the three children stepped back, but instead of opening, the door stopped shaking and the wires stopped moving, and the passageway was dead quiet.

"It's not opening," Tails said. "Maybe that isn't the central theme of Leo Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina"_

"It seemed like it was working until the last word," the scout said. "Maybe the mechanism is a little stuck " Tails said.

"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion only leads to something else," the scout said, and in some cases this mysterious person was right. A daring life of impulsive passion is an expression which refers to people who follow what is in their hearts, and like people who prefer to follow their head, or follow the advice of other people, or follow a mysterious man in a dark blue raincoat, people who lead a daring life of impulsive passion end up doing all sorts of things. For instance, if you ever find yourself reading a book entitled The Bible, you would find the story of Adam and Eve, whose daring life of impulsive passion led to them putting on clothing for the first time in their lives, in order to leave the snake-infested garden where they had been living. Bonnie and Clyde, another famous

couple who lived a daring life of impulsive passion, found that it led them to a successful if short career in bank robbery. And in my own case, in the few moments where I have led a daring life of impulsive passion, it has led to all sorts of trouble, from false accusations of arson to a broken cufflink I can never have repaired. But in this case, as the Hedges stood at the Vernacularly Fastened Door, hoping to reach the V.F.D. headquarters, rescue their brother, and see if one of their parents was indeed alive, it was not the sweatered scout but the two Hedges who were right, because in Leo Tolstoy's _Anna_ _Karenina,_ a daring life of impulsive passion leads only to tragedy, as Amy said, and as Tails said, the mechanism was a little stuck, and after a few seconds, the door swung open with a slow and eerie creak. The children stepped through the door, blinking in the sudden light, and stood frozen in their steps. If you have read this far in the Hedges' woeful story, then you will not be surprised to learn that the V.F.D. headquarters in the Valley of Four Drafts in the Mortmain Mountains was no more, but Tails and Amy, of course, were not reading their own story. They were in their own story, and this was the part of their story where they were sick with shock at what they saw.

The Vernacularly Fastened Door did not open onto a kitchen, not anymore. When the Hedges followed the mysterious scout through the doorway, they found themselves standing in what at first seemed to be a large field, growing a black and ruined harvest in a valley as cold and drafty as its name. But slowly, they saw the charred remains of the grand and impressive building that had stood where the three children were standing. Nearby was a handful of silverware that had survived the blaze, scattered in front of the remnants of a stove, and a refrigerator stood to one side, as if it were guarding the ashen remains of the rest of the kitchen. To one side was a pile of burnt wood that had probably once been a large dining table, with a half-melted candelabra sticking out of the top like a baby tree. Farther away, they could see the mysterious shapes of other objects that had survived the fire – a trombone, the

pendulum of a grandfather clock, what looked like a periscope, or perhaps a spyglass, an ice cream scoop, lying forlornly in a pile of ashes encrusted with burnt sugar, a pile of laptops and an iron archway emblazoned with the words "V.F.D. Library," but there was nothing beyond the archway but piles and piles of blackened remains. It was a devastating sight, and it made Tails and Amy feel as if they were all alone in a world that had been completely ruined. The only thing they could see that seemed untouched by the fire was a sheer, white wall, beyond the refrigerator, that rose up as far as two siblings could see. It took the Hedges a few moments to realize that it was a frozen waterfall, rising up in a slippery slope toward the source of the Stricken Stream on Mount Fraught, so shiny and white that it made the ruined headquarters look even darker.

"It must have been beautiful," the sweatered scout said, in a quivering voice. He walked toward the waterfall, his feet churning up black dust with every step. "I read that there was a large window," he said, moving his gloved hand in the air as if it were still there. "When it was your turn to cook, you could look out at the waterfall while you were chopping vegetables or simmering a sauce. It was supposed to be very peaceful. And there was a mechanism just outside the window that turned some of the water from the pool into steam. The steam rose up and covered the headquarters, so it couldn't be seen through the blanket of mist."

The Hedges walked to where the scout was standing, and looked into the frozen pool at the bottom of the waterfall. The pool branched off into two tributaries, a word which here means "divisions of a river or stream, each twisting off in a different direction past the ruins of the headquarters, and curving around the Mortmain Mountains until they disappeared from view." Tails and Amy gazed sadly at the icy swirls of black and grey they had noticed when they were walking alongside the Stricken Stream. "It was ashes" Amy said quietly. "Ashes from the fire fell into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, and the stream carried them down the river."

Tails found that it was easier to discuss a small, specific matter than think about her immense disappointment. "But the pool is frozen solid," she said. "The stream couldn't have carried the ashes anywhere."

"It wouldn't have been frozen when it happened," Amy replied. "The heat from the fire would have thawed the pool."

"It must have been awful to see," the sweatered scout said. Tails and Amy stood with him, imagining the inferno, a word which here means "enormous fire that destroyed a secret headquarters high in the mountains." They could almost hear the shattering of glass as the windows fell away, and the crackle of the fire as it consumed everything it could. They could almost smell the thick smoke as it floated upward and blackened the sky, and they could almost see the books in the library, falling from the burning shelves and tumbling into ashes The only thing they could not picture was who might have been at the headquarters when the fire began, running out into the freezing cold to avoid the flames.

"Do you think," Tails said, "any of the volunteers . . ."

"There's no sign that anyone was here," the scout said quickly.

"But how can we know for sure?" Amy asked. "There could be a survivor someplace right now."

 _"Hello?"_ Tails called, looking around him at the rubble. _"Hello?"_

He found that his eyes were filling with tears, as he called out for the people he knew in his heart were nowhere nearby. The eldest Hedge felt as if he had been calling for these people since that terrible day on the beach, and that if he called them enough they might appear before him. He thought of all the times he had called them, back when he lived with his siblings in the Hedge mansion.

Sometimes he called them when he wanted them to see something he had invented. Sometimes he called them when he wanted them to know he had arrived home. And sometimes he

called them just because he wanted to know where they were. Sometimes Tails just wanted to see them, and feel that he was safe as long as they were around. _"Mother!"_ Tails Hedge called. _"Father!"_

There was no answer.

 _"Mom!"_ Amy called. _"Dad!"_

The Hedges heard nothing but the rush of all four of the valley's drafts, and a long creak as the Vernacularly Fastened Door blew shut. They saw that the door had been made to look just like the side of the mountain, so that they could scarcely see where they had come from, or the way to get back. Now they were truly alone.

"I know we were all hoping to find people at the headquarters," the sweatered scout said gently, "but I don't think anyone is here. I think we're all by ourselves."

"That's _impossible!"_ Amy cried, and Tails could hear that she was crying. She reached through her layers of clothing until she found her pocket, and pulled out page thirteen from the Snicket file, which she had been carrying with her since the Hedges had found it at Heimlich Hospital. The page had a photograph of their parents, standing with Chocolate Snicket and another man the Hedges had been unable to identify, and above the photograph was a sentence Amy had memorized from reading it so many times. '"Because of the evidence discussed on page nine,'" she recited tearfully, "'experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown.'" She walked up to the scout and shook the page in his face. "We thought the survivor would be here," she said.

"I think the survivor _is_ here," the scout said quietly, and removed his mask to reveal his face at last. "I'm Shadow Quagmire," he said, "I survived the fire that destroyed my home, and I was hoping to find my brother and sister."

CHAPTER Eight

If is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous. If someone asks you how you are, for example, you might automatically say "Fine, thank you," when in fact you have just failed an examination or been trampled by an ox. A friend might tell you, "I've looked everywhere in the world for my keys," when you know that they have actually only looked in a few places in the immediate area. Once I said to a woman I loved very much, "I'm sure that this trouble will end soon, and you and I will spend the rest of our lives together in happiness and bliss," when I actually suspected that things were about to get much worse. And so it was with the two elder Hedges, when they stood face-to-face with Shadow Quagmire and found themselves to be saying things they knew were absurd.

"You're dead," Tails said, and took off his mask to make sure he was seeing things clearly. But there was no mistaking Shadow, even though the Hedges had never seen him before. He looked almost so much like Manic and Sonia that he could only be the third Quagmire triplet. But he had red and black quills instead of his brother who has green.

"You perished in a fire along with your parents," Amy said, but as she took off her mask she knew this wasn't so. Shadow was even giving the two Hedges a small smile that looked exactly like his siblings'.

"No," Shadow said. "I survived, and I've been looking for my siblings ever since."

"But how did you survive?" Tails asked. "Manic and Sonia said that the house burned to the ground."

"It did," Shadow said sadly. He looked out at the frozen waterfall and sighed deeply. "I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was in my family's library, studying a map of the Finite Forest, when I heard a shattering of glass, and people shouting. My mother ran into the room and said there was a fire. We tried to go out the front door but the main hall was filled with smoke, so she took me back into the library and lifted a corner of the rug. There was a secret door underneath. She told me to wait down below while she fetched my siblings, and she left me there in the dark. I remember hearing the house falling to pieces above me, and the sound of frantic footsteps, and my siblings screaming." Shadow put his mask down on the ground and looked at the two Hedges. "But she never came back," he said. "Nobody came back, and when I tried to open the door, something had fallen on top of it and it wouldn't budge."

"How did you get out?" Amy asked.

"I walked," Shadow said. "When it became clear that no one was going to rescue me, I felt around in the dark and realized I was in a sort of passageway. There was nowhere else to go so I started walking. I've never been so frightened in my life, walking alone in some dark passageway my parents had kept secret. I couldn't imagine where it would lead."

The two Hedges looked at one another. They were thinking about the secret passageway they had discovered underneath their home, which they had discovered when they were under the care of Eudora Squalor and her husband. "And where did it lead?" Tails said.

"To the house of a herpetologist," Shadow said. "At the end of the passageway was a secret door that opened into an enormous room, made entirely of glass. The room was filled with empty cages, but it was clear that the room had once housed an enormous collection of reptiles."

"We've been there!" Amy cried in amazement. "That's Uncle Knuckles' house! He was our guardian until Count Eggman arrived, disguised as – "

"As a lab assistant," Shadow finished. "I know. His suitcase was still there."

"There was a secret passageway under our house, too," Tails said, "but we didn't discover it until we lived with Eudora Squalor."

"There are secrets everywhere," Shadow said. "I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them."

"But why would our parents, and yours, have tunnels underneath their homes leading to a fancy apartment building and a herpetologist's home?" Amy said. "It doesn't make any sense."

Shadow sighed, and put his backpack on the ashen ground, next to his mask. "There's a lot that doesn't make sense," he said. "I was hoping to find the answers here, but now I don't know if I'll ever find them." He took out his dark red notebook and opened it to the first page.

"All I can tell you is what I have here in this commonplace book."

Amy gave Shadow a small smile, blushed, and reached into her pockets to retrieve all of the papers she had stored there. "You tell us what you know," she said, "and we'll tell you what we know. Perhaps together we can answer our own questions."

Shadow nodded in agreement, and the three children sat in a circle on what was once the kitchen floor. Shadow opened his backpack and took out a bag of salted almonds, which he passed around. "You must be hungry from the climb up the Vertical Flame Diversion," he said. "I know I am. Let's see, where was I?"

"In the Reptile Room," Tails said, "at the end of the passageway."

"Well, nothing happened for a while," Shadow said. "On the doorstep of the house was a copy of _The_ _Daily Punctilio,_ which had an article about the fire. That's how I learned that my parents were dead. I spent days and days there, all by myself. I was so sad, and

so scared, and I didn't know what else to do. I suppose I was waiting for the herpetologist to show up for work, and see if he was a friend of my parents and might be of some assistance. The kitchen was filled with food, so I had enough to eat, and every night I slept at the bottom of the stairs, so I could hear if anyone came in."

The Hedges nodded sympathetically, and Tails put a comforting hand on Shadow's shoulder. "We were the same way," Tails said, "right when we heard the news about our parents. I scarcely remember what we did and what we said."

"But didn't anyone come looking for you?" Amy asked.

 _"'The Daily Punctilio_ said that I died in the fire, too," Shadow said. "The article said that my sister and brother were sent off to Prufrock Preparatory School, and that my parents' estate was under the care of the city's sixth most important financial advisor."

 _"Eudora Squalor"_ Tails and Amy said simultaneously, a word which here means "in a disgusted voice, and at the exact same time."

"Right," Shadow said, "but I wasn't interested in that part of the story. I was determined to go to the school and find my siblings again. I found an atlas in Dr. Knuckles' library, and studied it until I found Prufrock Preparatory School. It wasn't too far, so I started to gather whatever supplies I could find around his house."

"Didn't you think of calling the authorities?" Amy asked.

"I guess I wasn't thinking very clearly," Shadow admitted. "All I could think of was finding my siblings."

"Of course," Tails said. "So what happened then?"

"I was interrupted," Shadow said. "Someone walked in just as I was putting the atlas in a totebag I found. It was Chocolate Snicket, but his real name is Jacques Snicket, although I didn't know who he was, of course. But he knew who I was, and was overjoyed that _I_ was alive after all."

"How did you know you could trust him?" Amy asked.

"Well, he knew about the secret passageway," Shadow said. In fact, he knew quite a bit about my family, even though he hadn't seen my parents in years. And . . ."

"And?" Amy said.

Shadow gave her a small smile. "And he was very well-read," he said. "In fact, he was at Dr. Knuckles' house to do a bit more reading. He said there was an important file that was hidden someplace on the premises, and he had to stay for a few days to try and complete his investigation."

"So he didn't take you to the school?" Tails asked.

"He said it wasn't safe for me to be seen," Shadow said. "He explained that he was part of a secret organization, and that my parents had been a part of it, too."

"V.F.D.," Amy said, and Shadow nodded in agreement.

"Manic and Sonia tried to tell us about V.F.D.," Tails said, "but they never got the chance. We don't even know what it stands for."

"It seems to stand for many things," Shadow said, flipping pages in his notebook. "Nearly everything the organization uses, from the Volunteer Feline Detectives to the Vernacularly Fastened Door, has the same initials."

"But what is the organization?" Tails asked. "What is V.F.D.?"

"Chocolate wouldn't tell me," Shadow said, "but I think the letters stand for Volunteer Fire Department."

"Volunteer Fire Department," Tails repeated, and looked at his sister. "What does that mean?"

"In some communities," Amy said, "there's no official fire department, and so they rely on volunteers to extinguish fires."

"I know that," Tails said, "but what does that have to do with our parents, or Count Eggman, or anything that has happened to us? I

always thought that knowing what the letters stood for would solve the mystery, but I'm as mystified as I ever was."

"Do you think our parents were secretly fighting fires?" Amy asked.

"But why would they keep it a secret?" Tails asked. "And why would they have a secret passageway underneath the house?"

"Chocolate said that the passageways were built by members of the organization," Shadow said. "In the case of an emergency, they could escape to a safe place."

"But the tunnel we found connects our house to the home of Eudora Squalor," Amy said. "That's not a safe place."

"Something happened," Shadow said. "Something that changed everything." He flipped through a few pages of his commonplace book until he found what he was looking for. "Chocolate Snicket called it a 'schism,'" he said, "but I don't know what that word means."

"A schism," Amy said, "is a division of a previously united group of people into two or more oppositional parties. It's like a big argument, with everybody choosing sides."

"That makes sense," Shadow said. "The way Chocolate talked, it sounded like the entire organization was in chaos. Volunteers who were once working together are now enemies. Places that were once safe are now dangerous. Both sides are using the same codes, and the same disguises. Even the V.F.D. insignia used to represent the noble ideals everyone shared, but now it's all gone up in smoke."

"But how did the schism start?" Tails asked. "What was everyone fighting over?"

"I don't know," Shadow said. "Chocolate didn't have much time to explain things to me."

"What was he doing?" Amy asked.

"He was looking for you," Shadow replied. "He showed me a

picture of all three of you, waiting at the dock on some lake, and asked me if I'd seen you anywhere. He knew that you'd been placed in Count Eggman's care, and all the terrible things that had happened there. He knew that you had gone to live with Dr. Knuckles. He even knew about some of the inventions you made, Tails, and the research you did, Amy, and some of Sonic's tooth-related exploits and speed. He wanted to find you before it was too late."

"Too late for what?" Tails said.

"I don't know," Shadow said with a sigh. "Chocolate spent a long time at Dr. Knuckles' house, but he was too busy conducting his investigation to explain everything to me. He would stay up all night reading and copying information into his notebook, and then sleep all day, or disappear for hours at a time. And then one day, he said he had to go interview someone in the town of Paltryville, but he never came back. I waited weeks and weeks for him to return. I read books in Dr. Knuckles' library, and started a commonplace book of my own. At first it was difficult to find any information on V.F.D., but I took notes on anything I could find. I must have read hundreds of books, but Chocolate never returned. Finally, one morning, two things happened that made me decide not to wait any longer. The first was an article in _The_ _Daily Punctilio_ saying that my siblings had been kidnapped from the school. I knew I had to do something. I couldn't wait for Chocolate Snicket or for anyone else."

The Hedges nodded in solemn agreement. "What was the second thing?" Tails asked.

Shadow was silent for a moment, and he reached down to the ground and scooped up a handful of ashes, letting them fall from his gloved hands. "I smelled smoke," he said, "and when I opened the door of the Reptile Room, I saw that someone had thrown a torch through the glass of the ceiling, starting a fire in the library. Within minutes, the entire house was in flames."

"Oh," Tails said quietly. "Oh" is a word which usually means something along the lines of, "I heard you, and I'm not particularly

interested," but in this case, of course, the eldest Hedge meant something entirely different, and it is something that is difficult to define. he meant "I am sad to hear that Uncle Knuckles' house burned down," but that is not all. By "Oh," Tails was also trying to describe his sadness about all of the fires that had brought Shadow and Amy and himself here to the Mortmain Mountains, to huddle in a circle and try to solve the mystery that surrounded them. When Tails said "Oh," he was not only thinking of the fire in the Reptile Room, but the fires that had destroyed the Hedge home, and the Quagmire home, and Heimlich Hospital, and Caligari Carnival, and the V.F.D. headquarters, where the smell of smoke still lingered around where the children were sitting. Thinking of all those fires made Tails feel as if the entire world were going up in flames, and that she and her siblings and all the other decent people in the world might never find a place that was truly safe.

"Another fire," Amy murmured, and Tails knew she was thinking the same thing. "Where could you go, Shadow?"

"The only place I could think of was Paltryville," Shadow said. "The last time I saw Chocolate he'd said he was going there. I thought if I went there I might find him again, and see if he could help me rescue Manic and Sonia. Dr. Knuckles atlas showed me how to get there, but I had to go on foot, because I was afraid that anyone who might offer me a ride would be an enemy. It was a long time before I finally arrived, but as soon as I stepped into town I saw a large building that matched the tattoo on Chocolate Snicket's ankle. I thought it might be a safe place to go."

"Dr. Rouge Orwell's office!" Amy cried. "That's not a safe place to go!"

"Amy was hypnotized there," Tails explained, "and Count Eggman was disguised as – "

"As a receptionist," Shadow finished. "I know. His fake nameplate was still on the desk. The office was deserted, but I could tell that Chocolate had been there, because there were some notes in his handwriting that he'd left on the desk. With those notes, and the

information I'd read in Dr. Knuckles' library, I learned about the

V.F.D. headquarters. So instead of waiting for Chocolate again, I set out to find the organization. I thought they were my best hope of rescuing my siblings."

"So you set off to the Mortmain Mountains by yourself?" Tails asked.

"Not quite by myself," Shadow said. "I had this backpack that Chocolate left behind, with the Verdant Flammable Devices and a few other items, and I had my commonplace book. And eventually, I ran into the Snow Scouts, and realized that hiding among them would be the quickest way to reach Mount Fraught." He turned a page in his commonplace book and examined his notes. _"Remarkable_ _Phenomena_ _of_ _the Mortmain Mountains,_ which I read in Dr Knuckles' library, had a hidden chapter that told me all about the Vertical Flame Diversion and the Vernacularly Fastened Door."

Amy looked over Shadow's shoulder to read his notes. "I should have read that book when I had the chance," she said, shaking her head. "If we had known about V.F.D. when we were living with Uncle Knuckles, we might have avoided all the trouble that followed."

"When we were living with Uncle Knuckles," Tails reminded her, "we were too busy trying to escape Count Eggman's clutches to do any additional research."

"I've had plenty of time to do research," Shadow said, "but I still haven't found all the answers I'm looking for. I still haven't found Manic and Sonia, and I still don't know where Chocolate Snicket is."

"He's dead," Amy said, very quietly. "Count Eggman murdered him."

"I thought you might say that," Shadow said. "I knew something was very wrong when he didn't return. But what about my siblings? Do you know what happened to them?"

"They're safe, Shadow," Tails said. "We think they're safe. We

rescued them from Eggman's clutches, and they escaped with a man named Jet."

"Escaped?" Shadow repeated. "Where did they go?"

"We don't know," Amy admitted. "Jet built a self-sustaining hot air mobile home. It was like a flying house, kept in the air by a bunch of balloons, and Jet said it could stay up in the sky forever."

"We tried to climb aboard," Tails said, "but Count Eggman managed to stop us."

"So you don't know where they are?" Shadow asked.

"I'm afraid not," Tails said, and patted his hand. "But Manic and Sonia are intrepid people, Shadow. They survived for quite some time in Eggman's clutches, taking notes on his schemes and trying to pass on the information to us."

"Tails' right," Amy said. "I'm sure that wherever they are, they're continuing their research. Eventually, they'll find out you're alive, and they'll come looking for you, just like you went looking for them."

The two Hedges looked at one another and shivered. They had been talking about Shadow's family, of course, but they felt as if they were talking about their own. "I'm sure that if your parents are alive, they're looking for you, too," Shadow said, as if he'd read their minds. "And Sonic, too. Do you know where he is?"

"Someplace nearby," Tails said. "He's with Count Eggman, and Eggman wanted to find the headquarters, too."

"Maybe Eggman has already been here," Shadow said, looking around at the wreckage. "Maybe he's the one who burned this place down."

"I don't think so," Amy said. "He wouldn't have had time to burn this whole place down. We were right on his trail. Plus, I don't think this place burned down all at once."

"Why not?" Shadowsaid.

"It's too big," Amy replied. "If the whole headquarters were burning, the sky would be covered in smoke."

"That's true," Tails said. "That much smoke would arouse too much suspicion."

"Where there's smoke," Shadow said, "there's fire."

Tails and Amy turned to their friend to agree, but Shadow was not looking at the two Hedges. He was looking past them, toward the frozen pool and the two frozen tributaries, where the enormous windows of the V.F.D. kitchen had once stood, and where I once chopped broccoli while the woman I loved mixed up a spicy peanut sauce to go with it, and he was pointing up toward the sky, where my associates and I used to watch the volunteer eagles who could spot smoke from a very great distance.

That afternoon, there were no eagles in the skies over the Mortmain Mountains, but as Tails and Amy stood up and looked in the direction Shadow was pointing, there was something in the sky that caught their attention. Because when Shadow Quagmire said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," he was not referring to Amy's theory about the destruction of V.F.D. headquarters. He was talking about the sight of green smoke, wafting up into the sky from the peak of Mount Fraught, at the top of the slippery slope.

CHAPTER Nine

The two elder Hedges stood for a moment with Shadow, gazing up at the small plume, a word which here means "mysterious cloud of green smoke." After the long, strange story he had told them about surviving the fire and what he had learned about V.F.D., they could scarcely believe that they were confronting another mystery.

"It's a Verdant Flammable Device," Shadow said. "There's someone at the top of the waterfall, sending a signal."

"Yes," Tails said, "but who?"

"Maybe it's a volunteer, who escaped from the fire," Amy said. "They're signaling to see if there are any other volunteers nearby."

"Or it could be a trap," Shadow said. "They could be luring volunteers up to the peak in order to ambush them. Remember, the codes of V.F.D. are used by both sides of the schism."

"It hardly seems like a code," Tails said. "We know that someone is communicating, but we don't have the faintest idea who they are, or what they're saying."

"This is what it must be like," Amy said thoughtfully, "when Sonic talks to people who don't know him very well."

At the mention of Sonic's name, the Hedges were reminded of how much they missed him. "Whether it's a volunteer or a trap," Tails said, "it might be our only chance to find our brother."

"Or my sister and brother," Shadow said.

"Let's signal back," Amy said. "Do you still have those Verdant Flammable Devices, Shadow?"

"Of course," Shadow said, taking the box of green tubes out of his backpack, "but Max saw my matches and confiscated them, because children shouldn't play with matches."

"Confiscated them?" Amy said. "Do you think he's an enemy of V.F.D.?"

"If everyone who said that children shouldn't play with matches was an enemy of V.F.D.," Tails said with a smile, "then we wouldn't have a chance of survival."

"But how are we going to light these without matches?" Shadow asked.

Tails reached into his pocket. It was a bit tricky to tie his hair up in a ribbon, as all four drafts in the Valley of Four Drafts were blowing hard, but at last his hair was out of his eyes, and the gears and levers of his inventing mind began to move as he gazed up at the mysterious signal.

But of course this signal was neither a volunteer nor a trap. It was a baby, with unusually large teeth and a way of talking that some people found confusing. When Sonic Hedge had said "lox," for example, the member of Count Eggman's troupe had assumed he was simply babbling, rather than explaining how he was going to cook the salmon that the hook-handed fox had caught. "Lox" is a word which refers to smoked salmon, and it is a delicious way to enjoy freshly caught fish, particularly if one has the appropriate accoutrements, a phrase which here means "bagels, cream cheese, sliced cucumber, black pepper, and capers, which can be eaten along with the lox for an enjoyable meal." Lox also has an additional benefit of producing quite a bit of smoke as it is prepared, and this is the reason Sonic chose this method of preparing salmon, as opposed to gravlax, which is salmon marinated for several days in a mixture of spices, or sashimi, which is salmon cut into pleasing shapes and simply served raw.

Remembering what Count Eggman had said about being able to see everything and everyone from the peak where he had brought him,

the youngest Hedge realized that the phrase "where there's smoke there's fire" might be able to help him. As Tails and Amy heard Shadow's extraordinary tale at the bottom of the frozen waterfall, Sonic hurried to prepare lox and send a signal to his siblings, who she hoped were nearby. First, he nudged the Verdant Flammable Device – which he, like everyone at the peak, believed was a cigarette – into a small patch of weeds, in order to increase the smoke. Then he dragged over the covered casserole dish that he had been using as a makeshift bed, and placed the salmon inside it. In no time at all, the fish caught by the hook-handed fox were absorbing the heat and smoke from the simmering green tube, and a large plume of green smoke was floating up into the sky above Mount Fraught. Sonic gazed up at the signal he made and couldn't help smiling. The last time he had been separated from his siblings, he had simply waited in the birdcage for them to come and rescue him, but he had grown since then, and was able to take an active part in defeating Count Eggman and his troupe while still having time to prepare a seafood dish "Something smells delicious," said one of the white-faced women, walking by the casserole dish. "I must admit, I had some doubts that an infant should be in charge of the cooking, but your salmon recipe seems like it will be very tasty indeed."

"There's a word for the way he's preparing the fish," the hook-handed fox said, "but I can't remember what it is."

 _"Lox,"_ Sonic said, but no one heard him over the sound of Count Eggman storming out of his tent, followed by Eudora and the two sinister visitors. Eggman was clutching the Snicket file and glaring down at Sonic with his shiny, shiny eyes.

"Put that smoke out _at once!"_ he ordered. "I thought you were a terrified orphan prisoner, but I'm beginning to think you're a spy!"

"What do you mean, Eggman?" asked the other white-faced woman. "he's using Eudora's cigarette to cook us some fish."

"Someone might see the smoke," Eudora snarled, as if he had not

been smoking herself just moments ago. "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

The man with a beard but no hair picked up a handful of snow and threw it onto the weeds, extinguishing the Verdant Flammable Device. "Who are you signaling to, baby?" he asked, in his strange, hoarse voice. "If you're a spy, we're going to toss you off this mountain."

"Goo goo," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of "I'm going to pretend I'm a helpless baby, instead of answering your question."

"You see?" the white-faced woman said, looking nervously at the man with a beard but no hair. "he's just a helpless baby."

"Perhaps you're right," said the woman with hair but no beard. "Besides, there's no reason to toss a baby off a mountain unless you absolutely have to."

"Babies can come in handy," Count Eggman agreed. "In fact, I've been thinking about recruiting more young people into my troupe. They're less likely to complain about doing my bidding."

"But we never complain," the hook-handed fox said. "I try to be as accommodating as possible."

"Enough chitchat," said the man with a beard but no hair. "We have a lot of scheming to do, Eggman. I have some information that might help you with your recruiting idea, and according to the Snicket file, there's one more safe place for the volunteers to gather."

"The last safe place," said the sinister woman. "We have to find it and burn it down."

"And once we do," Count Eggman said, "the last evidence of our plans will be completely destroyed. We'll never have to worry about the authorities again."

"Where is this last safe place?" asked Miles.

Eggman opened his mouth to answer, but the woman with hair but no beard stopped him with a quick gesture and a suspicious glance down at Sonic. "Not in front of the toothy orphan," she said, in her deep, deep voice. "If he learned what we were up to, he'd never sleep again, and you need your infant servant full of energy. Send him away, and we'll make our plans."

"Of course," Eggman said, smiling nervously at the sinister visitors. "Orphan, go to my car and remove all of the potato chip crumbs from the interior by blowing as hard as you can."

"Futil," Sonic said, which meant something like, "That is an absolutely impossible chore," but he walked unsteadily toward the car while Eggman's troupe laughed and gathered around the flat rock to hear the new scheme. Passing the extinguished fire and the covered casserole dish where he would sleep that night, Sonic sighed sadly, thinking that his signal plan must have failed. But when he reached Eggman's car and gazed down at the frozen waterfall, he saw something that lightened his spirits, a phrase which here means "an identical plume of green smoke, coming from the very bottom of the slope." The youngest Hedge looked down at the smoke and smiled. "Sibling," he said to himself. Sonic, of course, could not be certain that it was Tails and Amy who were signaling to him, but he could hope it was so, and hope was enough to cheer him up as he opened the door of the car and began blowing at the crumbs Eggman and his troupe had scattered all over the upholstery.

But at the bottom of the frozen waterfall, the two elder Hedges did not feel nearly as hopeful as they stood with Shadow and watched the green smoke disappear from the highest peak.

"Someone put out the Verdant Flammable Device," Shadow said, holding the green tube to one side so he wouldn't smell the smoke. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know," Tails said, and sighed. "This isn't working."

"Of course it's working," Amy said. "It's working perfectly. You

noticed that the afternoon sun was reflecting off the frozen waterfall, and it gave you the idea to use the scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light – just like you did on Lake Lachrymose, when we were battling the leeches. So you used Rosy's hand mirror to catch the sun's rays and reflect them onto the end of the Verdant Flammable Device, so we could light it and send a signal."

"Amy is right," Shadow said. "It couldn't have worked better."

"Thank you," Tails said, "but that's not what I mean. I mean this code isn't working. We still don't know who's up on the peak, or why they were signalling us, and now the signal has stopped, but we still don't know what it means."

"Maybe we should extinguish our Verdant Flammable Device, too," Amy said.

"Maybe," Tails agreed, "or maybe we should go up to the top of the waterfall and see for ourselves who is there."

Shadow frowned, and took out his commonplace book. "The only way up to the highest peak," he said, "is the path that the Snow Scouts are taking. We'd have to go back through the Vernacularly Fastened Door, back down the Vertical Flame Diversion, back into the Volunteer Feline Detective cave, re-join the scouts and hike for a long time."

"That's not the only way up to the peak," Tails said with a smile. "Yes, it is," Shadow insisted. "Look at the map."

"Look at the waterfall," Tails replied, and all three children looked up at the shiny slope.

"Do you mean," Amy said, "that you think you can invent something which can get us up a frozen waterfall?"

But Tails was already tying his hair out of his eyes again, and looking around at the ruins of the V.F.D. headquarters. "I'll need that ukulele that you took from the caravan," he said to Amy, "and

that half-melted candelabra over there by the dining room table."

Amy took the ukulele from her coat pocket and handed it to her brother, and then walked over to the table to retrieve the strange, melted object. "Unless you need any further assistance," she said, "I think I might go examine the wreckage of the library and see if any documents have survived. We might as well learn as much from this headquarters as we can."

"Good idea," Shadow said, and reached into his backpack. He brought out a notebook much like his own, except it had a dark blue cover. "I have a spare notebook," he said. "You might be interested in starting a commonplace book of your own."

"That's very kind of you," Amy said. "I'll write down anything I find."

"Can I help?" Shadow asked quietly

"Oh no thank you. I can do this on my own." Amy insisted

"Well, alright, in that case I'll stay here," Shadow said, looking at Tails. "I've heard quite a bit about Tails Hedge's inventions, and I'd like to see him at work."

Amy nodded, blushed, and walked off to the iron archway marking the entrance of the ruined library, while Tails eaned down to pick up one of the forks that had survived the fire.

It is one of the great sadness's of the Hedge case that Tails never got to meet a man named C. M. Kornbluth, an associate of mine who spent most of his life living and working in the Valley of Four Drafts as a mechanical instructor at the V.F.D. headquarters.

Mr. Kornbluth was a quiet and secretive man, so secretive that no one ever knew who he was, where he came from, or even what the C or the M stood for, and he spent much of his time holed up in his dormitory room writing strange stories, or gazing sadly out the windows of the kitchen. The one thing that put Mr. Kornbluth in a good mood would be a particularly promising mechanical student. If a young man showed an interest in deep sea radar, Mr. Kornbluth would take off his glasses and smile. If a young woman brought him a staple gun she had built, Mr. Kornbluth would clap his hands in

excitement. And if a pair of twins asked him how to properly reroute some copper wiring, he would take a paper bag out of his pocket and offer some pistachio nuts to anyone who happened to be around. So, when I think of Tails Hedge standing in the wreckage of the V.F.D. headquarters, carefully taking the strings off the ukulele and bending some of the forks in half, I can imagine Mr. Kornbluth, even though he and his pistachios are long gone, turning from the window, smiling at the Hedge inventor, and saying, "Cream, come over here! Look at what this girl is making!"

"What are you making?" Shadow asked.

"Something that will get us up that waterfall," Tails replied. "I only wish that Sonic were here. His teeth would be perfect to slice these ukulele strings into halves."

"I might have something that could help " Shadow said, looking through his backpack "When I was in Dr. Rouge Orwell's office, I found these fake fingernails. They're a horrible shade of pink, but they're quite sharp."

Tails took a fingernail from Shadow and looked at it carefully. "I think Count Eggman was wearing these," he said, "as part of his receptionist disguise. It's so strange that you have been following in our footsteps all this time, and yet we never even knew you were alive."

"I knew you were alive," Shadow said. "Chocolate Snicket told me all about you, Amy, Sonic, and even your parents. He knew them quite well before you were born."

"I thought so," Tails said, cutting the ukulele strings. "In the photograph we found, my parents are standing with Chocolate Snicket and another man."

"He's Chocolate's brother," Shadow said. "Chocolate told me that he was working closely with his two siblings on an important file."

"The Snicket file," Tails said. "We were hoping to find it here."

Shadow looked up at the frozen waterfall. "Maybe whoever signalled us will know where it is," he said.

"We'll find out soon enough," Tails said. "Please take off your shoes."

"My shoes?" Shadow asked.

"The waterfall will be very slippery," Tails explained, "so I'm using the ukulele strings to tie these bent forks to the toe area, to make fork-assisted climbing shoes. We'll hold two more forks in our hands. Tines of the forks are almost as sharp as Sonic's teeth, so the fork-assisted climbing shoes will easily dig into the ice with each step, and enable us to keep our balance."

"But what's the candelabra for?" Shadow asked, unlacing his shoes.

"I'm going to use it as an ice tester," Tails said. "A moving body of water, such as a waterfall, is rarely completely frozen. There are probably places on that slope where there is only a thin layer of ice, particularly with False Spring on its way. If we stuck our forks through the ice and hit water, we'd lose our grip and fall. So I'll tap on the ice with the candelabra before each step, to find the solid places we should climb."

"It sounds like a difficult journey," Shadow said.

"No more difficult than climbing up the Vertical Flame Diversion," Tails said, tying a fork onto Shadow's shoe. "I'm using the Sumac knot, so it should hold tight. Now, all we need is Amy's shoes, and

– "

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think this might be important," Amy said, and Tails turned to see that his sister had returned. She was holding the dark blue notebook in one hand and a small, burnt piece of paper in the other. "I found this scrap of paper in a pile of ashes," he said. "It's from some kind of code book."

"What does it say?" Tails asked.

"'In the e flagration resulting in the destruction of a sanc

,'" Amy read, "' teers should avail themselves of Verbal Fri Dialogue, which is concealed accordingly.'"

"That doesn't make any sense," Shadow said. "Do you think it's in code?"

"Sort of," Amy said. "Parts of the sentence are burned away, so you have to figure the sentence out as if it's encoded. 'Flagration' is probably the last part of the word 'conflagration,' a fancy word for fire, and 'sanc' is probably the beginning of the word 'sanctuary,' which means a safe place. So the sentence probably began something like, 'In the event of a conflagration resulting in the destruction of a sanctuary.'"

Tails stood up and looked over her shoulder. "'Teers,'" he said, "is probably 'volunteers,' but I don't know what 'avail themselves' means."

"It means 'to make use of,'" Amy said, 'like you're availing yourself of the ukulele and those forks. Don't you see? This says that in case a safe place burns down, they'll leave some sort of message – 'Verbal Fri Dialogue.'"

"But what could 'Verbal Fri Dialogue' be?" Shadow asked. "Friends? Frisky?"

"Frilly?" Tails guessed. "Frightening?"

"But it says that it's concealed accordingly," Amy pointed out. "That means that the dialogue is hidden in a logical way. If it were Verbal Waterfall Dialogue, it would be hidden in the waterfall. So none of those words can be right. Where would someone leave a message where fire couldn't destroy it?"

"But fire destroys everything," Tails said. "Look at the headquarters. Nothing is left standing except the library entrance, and . . ."

". . . and the refrigerator," Amy finished. "Or, we might say, the fridge."

"Verbal Fridge Dialogue!" Shadow said.

"The volunteers left a message," said Amy, who was already halfway to the refrigerator, "in the only place they knew wouldn't be affected by the fire."

"And the one place their enemies wouldn't think of looking," Shadow said. "After all, there's never anything terribly important in the refrigerator."

What Shadow said, of course, is not entirely true. Like an envelope, a hollow figurine, and a coffin, a refrigerator can hold all sorts of things, and they may turn out to be very important depending on what kind of day you are having. A refrigerator may hold an icepack, for example, which would be important if you had been wounded. A refrigerator may hold a bottle of water, which would be important if you were dying of thirst. And a refrigerator may hold a basket of strawberries, which would be important if a maniac said to you, "If you don't give me a basket of strawberries right now, I'm going to poke you with this large stick." But when the two elder Hedges and ShadowQuagmire opened the refrigerator, they found nothing that would help someone who was wounded, dying of thirst, or being threatened by a

strawberry-crazed, stick-carrying maniac or anything that looked important at all. The fridge was mostly empty, with just a few of the usual things people keep in their refrigerators and rarely use, including a jar of mustard, a container of olives, three jars of different kinds of jam, a bottle of lemon juice, and one lonely pickle in a small glass jug.

"There's nothing here," Tails said.

"Look in the crisper," Shadow said, pointing to a drawer in the refrigerator traditionally used for storing fruits and vegetables. Amy opened the drawer and pulled out a few strands of a green

plant with tiny, skinny leaves.

"It smells like dill," Amy said, "and it's quite crisp, as if it were picked yesterday."

"Very Fresh Dill," Shadow said.

"Another mystery," Amy said, and tears filled her eyes. "We have nothing but mysteries. We don't know where Sonic is. We don't know where Count Eggman is. We don't know who's signaling to us at the top of the waterfall, or what they're trying to say, and now here's a mysterious message in a mysterious ode in a mysterious refrigerator, and a bunch of mysterious herbs in the crisper. I'm tired of mysteries. I want someone to help us."

"We can help each other," Tails said. "We have my inventions, and Shadow's maps, and your research."

"And we're all very well-read," Shadow said. "That should be enough to solve any mystery."

Amy sighed, and kicked at something that lay on the ashen ground. It was the small shell of a pistachio nut, blackened from the fire that destroyed the headquarters. "It's like we're members of

V.F.D. already," she said. "We're sending signals, and breaking codes, and finding secrets in the ruins of a fire."

"Do you think our parents would be proud of us," Tails asked, "for following in their footsteps?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "After all, they kept V.F.D. a secret." "Maybe they were going to tell us later," Tails said.

"Or maybe they hoped we would never find out," Amy said.

"I keep wondering the same thing," Shadow said. "If I could travel back in time to the moment my mother showed me the secret passageway under the library, I would ask her why she was keeping these secrets."

"That's one more mystery," Tails said sadly, and looked up at the

slippery slope. It was getting later and later in the afternoon, and the frozen waterfall looked less and less shiny in the fading sunlight, as if time were running out to climb to the top and see who had been signaling to them. "We should each investigate the mystery we're most likely to solve," he said. "I'll climb up the waterfall, and solve the mystery of the Verdant Flammable Device by learning who's up there, and what they want. You should stay down here, Amy, and solve the mystery of the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, by learning the code and discovering what the message is."

"And I'll help you both," Shadow said, taking out his dark red notebook. "I'll leave my commonplace book with Amy, in case it's any help with the codes. And I'll climb up the waterfall with you, Tails, in case you need my help."

"Are you sure?" Tails asked. "You've already taken us this far, Shadow. You don't have to risk your life any further."

"We'll understand," Amy said, "if you want to leave and search for your siblings."

"Don't be absurd," Shadow said. "We're all part of this mystery, whatever it is. Of course I'm going to help you. I want to help you Amy but I would love to meet Sonic."

The two Hedges looked at one another and smiled. It is so rare in this world to meet a trustworthy person who truly wants to help you, and finding such a person can make you feel warm and safe, even if you are in the middle of a windy valley high up in the mountains. For a moment, as their friend smiled back at them, it seemed as if all the mysteries had been solved already, even with Sonic still separated from them, and Count Eggman still at large, and the abandoned V.F.D. headquarters still in ashes around them. Just knowing that they had found a person like Shadow Quagmire made Tails and Amy feel as if every code made sense, and every signal was clear.

Tails stepped forward, his fork-assisted climbing shoes making small, determined noises on the ground, and took Shadow's hand.

"Thank you," he said, "for volunteering."

CHAPTER Ten

Tails and Shadow walked carefully across the frozen pool until they reached the bottom of the waterfall. "Good luck!" Amy called, from the archway of the ruined library. She was polishing her glasses, as she often did before embarking on serious research.

"Good luck to you!" Tails replied, shouting over the rush of the mountain winds, and as he looked back at his sister, he remembered when the two siblings were trying to stop the caravan as it hurtled down the mountain. Amy had wanted to say something to him, in case the drag chute and the mixture of sticky substances hadn't worked. Tails had the same feeling now as he prepared to climb the frozen waterfall and leave his sister behind at the ashy remains of the V.F.D. headquarters. "Amy – " he said.

Amy put her glasses on and gave her brother his bravest smile. "Whatever you're thinking of saying," she said, "say it when you return."

Tails nodded, and tapped the candelabra against a spot on the ice. he heard a deep _thunk!,_ as if he were tapping something very solid. "We'll start here," he said to Shadow. "Brace yourself."

The expression "brace yourself," as I'm sure you know, does not mean to take some metal wiring and rivets and other orthodontic materials and apply them to your own teeth in order straighten them. The expression simply means "get ready for something that will probably be difficult," and it was indeed very difficult to climb a frozen waterfall in the middle of a windswept valley with nothing but a candelabra and a few well-placed forks to aid the two children in their climb. Tails could have flew up but the winds could have knocked him off course. It took a few moments for Tails and Shadow to work his invention properly, and push the forks into the ice just far enough to hold them there, but not so far that they would be

permanently stuck, and once both of them were in position, Tails had to reach up as far as he could and tap the candelabra on the ice above them to find the next solid place to climb. For the first few steps, it seemed like ascending the icy slope in this manner would be impossible, but as time went on, and the two volunteers grew more and more skillful with the fork-tipped climbing shoes and the candelabra ice-tester, it became clear that once again Tails' inventing skills would carry the day, a phrase which here means "enable Tails Hedge and Shadow Quagmire to climb up a frozen waterfall after bracing themselves for the difficult journey."

"Your invention is working," Shadow called up to Tails. "These fork-assisted climbing shoes are marvellous."

"They do seem to be working," Tails agreed, "but let's not celebrate just yet. We have a long way to go."

"My sister wrote a couplet about that very thing," Shadow said, and recited Sonia's poem:

 _"Celebrate when you're half-done, And the finish won't be half as fun._ "

Tails smiled, and reached up to test the ice above her. "Sonia is a good poet," Tails said, "and her poems have come in handy more than once. When we were at the Village of Fowl Devotees, she led us to her location by hiding a secret message in a series of couplets."

"I wonder if that's a code she learned from V.F.D.," Shadow said, "or if she made it up herself."

"I don't know," Tails said thoughtfully. "She and Manic were the first to tell us about V.F.D., but it never occurred to me that they might already be members. When I think about it, however, the code she used was similar to one that our Aunt Sticks used. They both hid a secret location within a note, and waited for us to discover the hidden message. Maybe they were all volunteers." he

removed his left fork-assisted climbing shoe from the ice, and kicked it back in a few inches up to further her climb. "Maybe all our guardians have been members of V.F.D., on one side or the other of the schism."

"It's hard to believe," Shadow said, "that we've always been surrounded by people carrying out secret errands, and never known it."

"It's hard to believe that we're climbing a frozen waterfall in the Mortmain Mountains," Tails replied, "and yet, here we are. There Shadow, do you see the ledge where my left-fork is? It's solid enough for both of us to sit for a moment and catch our breath."

"Good," Shadow said. "I have a small bag of carrots in my backpack we can eat to regain our energy." The triplet climbed up to where Tails was sitting, on a small ledge scarcely the size of a sofa, and slid so he was sitting next to her. The two climbers could see that they had traveled farther than they'd thought. Far below them were the blackened ruins of the headquarters, and Amy was only a small speck near a tiny iron archway. Shadow handed Tails a carrot, and he bit down on it thoughtfully.

"Sonic loves raw carrots," Tails said. "I hope that he's eating well, wherever he is."

"I hope my siblings are eating well, too," Shadowsaid. "My father always used to say that a good meal can cheer one up considerably."

"My father always said the same thing," Tails said, looking at Shadow curiously. "Do you think _that_ was a code, too?"

Shadow shrugged and sighed. Small bits of ice from the waterfall fell from the ends of forks and blew away in the wind. "It's like we never really knew our parents," he said.

"We knew them," Tails said. "They just had a few secrets, that's all. Everyone should keep a few secrets."

"I suppose so,' Shadow said, "but they might have mentioned that they were in a secret organization with a headquarters hidden in the Mortmain Mountains."

"Maybe they didn't want us to find out about such a dangerous place," Tails said, peering off the ledge, "although if you have to hide a headquarters, it's a beautiful place to do it. Aside from the remains of the fire, this is a very lovely view."

"Very lovely indeed," Shadow said, but he was looking at the view beneath him. Tails saw that he was looking at the speak that was Amy.

Many things have been taken from the three Hedges. Their parents were taken, of course, and their home was taken from them, by a terrible fire. Their various guardians were taken from them, because they were murdered by Count Eggman or were simply miserable guardians who soon lost interest in three young children with nowhere to go. The Hedges' dignity was taken from them, on the occasions when the siblings were forced to wear absurd disguises, and recently they had been taken from one another, with the kidnapped Sonic doing chores at the top of the frozen waterfall while Tails and Amy learned the secrets of V.F.D. at the bottom. But one thing that was taken from the Hedges that is not often discussed is their privacy, a word which here means "time by oneself, without anyone watching or interfering.' Unless you are a hermit or half of a pair of Siamese twins, you probably enjoy taking the occasional break from members of your family to enjoy some privacy, perhaps with a friend or companion, in your room or in a railway car you have managed to sneak aboard. But since that dreadful day at Briny Beach, when Mr. Silver Poe arrived to tell the Hedges that their parents had perished, the three children had scarcely had any privacy at all. From the small, dark bedroom where they slept at Count Eggman's house, to the crowded caravan at Caligari Carnival, and all of the other woeful places in between, the Hedges' situation was always so desperate and cramped that

they were rarely able to spare a moment for a bit of private time.

So, as Tails and Shadow rest for a few minutes more on a ledge halfway up the frozen waterfall, I will take this opportunity to give them a bit of privacy, by not writing down anything more of what happened between these two friends on that chilly afternoon.

Certainly there are aspects of my own personal life that I will never write down, however precious they are to me, and I will offer the eldest Hedge the same courtesy of learning Shadow's feelings of the middle child. I will tell you that the two young people resumed their climb, and that the afternoon slowly turned to evening and that both Tails and Shadow had small secret smiles on their faces as the candelabra ice-tester and the

fork-assisted climbing shoes helped them both get closer and closer to the mountains' highest peak.

"We're almost there," Tails said. "It's difficult to see with the sun going down, but I believe we're just about at the top of the peak."

"I can't believe we've been climbing all afternoon," Shadowsaid.

"Not _all_ afternoon," he reminded him. "I guess this waterfall is about as high as 667 Dark Avenue. It took a very long time to go up and down that elevator shaft trying to rescue your siblings. I hope this is a more successful journey."

"Me, too," Shadow said. "What do you think we will find at the top?"

"Set!" came the reply.

"I couldn't hear you over the wind," Shadow said. "What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything," Tails said. he squinted above him, trying to see in the last of the sunset, and scarcely daring to hope that he had heard correctly.

Out of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions, and if you open a good dictionary and read the word's long, long entry, you will begin to think that "set" is scarcely a word at all, only a sound that means something different depending on who is saying it. If a group of jazz musicians says "set," for instance, they are probably referring to the songs they are planning to play at a club that evening, assuming it doesn't burn down. If the owner of a restaurant uses the word "set," they might mean group of matching wineglasses, or a bunch of waitresses who look exactly alike. A librarian will say "set" to refer to a collection of books that are all by the same author or about the same subject, and an Egyptologist will use the word "set" to refer to the ancient god of evil, although he does not come up very often in conversation. But when Tails heard the word "set" from the top of Mount Fraught, she did not think there was a group of jazz musicians, a restaurant owner, a librarian, or an Egyptologist talking about jazz tunes, wineglasses, waitresses, thematically linked books, or a black, immoral aardvark who is the sworn enemy of the god Osiris. he reached his fork as high as he could so he could climb closer, and saw the rays of the sunset reflect off a large tooth, and Tails knew that this time, the definition of "set" was "I knew you would find me!" and the speaker was Sonic Hedge. "Set!" Sonic said again.

"Sonic!" Tails cried. "Sssh!" Sonic said.

"What is going on?" Shadow asked, several forksteps behind Tails.

"It's Sonic," Tails said, and hoisted himself onto the peak to see his baby brother, standing next to Count Eggman's car and grinning from ear to ear. Without another word, the two Hedge brothers hugged fiercely, Tails taking care not to poke Sonic with one of the forks he was holding. By the time Shadow reached the top of the peak and pulled himself up to lean against one of the car's tires, the two

Hedges were smiling at each other with tears in their eyes.

"I knew we'd see you again, Sonic," Tails said. "I just knew it." "Amy?" Sonic asked.

"She's safe and nearby," Tails said. "He knew we could find you, too."

"Set," Sonic agreed, but then he noticed Shadow and his eyes grew wide. "Quagmire?" he asked in amazement.

"Yes," Tails said. "This is Shadow Quagmire, Sonic. He survived the fire after all." Sonic walked unsteadily over to Shadow and shook his hand. "He led us to the headquarters, Sonic, with a map he drew himself."

"Arigato," Sonic said, which meant something like, "I appreciate your help, Shadow."

"Was it you who signaled us?" Shadow asked. "Yep," Sonic said. "Lox."

"Count Eggman's been making you do the cooking?" Tails asked in amazement.

"Vaccurum," Sonic said.

"Eggman even made him clean crumbs out of the car," Tails translated to Shadow, "by blowing as hard as he could."

"That's ridiculous!" Shadow said.

"Male Cinderella," Sonic said. he meant something along the lines of, "I've had to do all of the chores, while being humiliated at every turn," but Tails had no time to translate over the sound of Count Eggman's scratchy voice.

"Where are you, Babyedge?" he asked, adding an absurd nickname to his list of insults. "I've thought of more tasks for you to perform."

The three children looked at one another in panic. "Hide," Sonic whispered, and there was no need for translation. Tails and Shadow looked around the desolate landscape of the peak for a place to hide, but there was only one place to go.

"Under the car," Tails said, and he and Shadow wriggled underneath the long, black automobile, which was as dirty and smelly as its owner. As an inventor, the eldest Hedge had stared closely at automotive machinery plenty of times, but he had never seen such an extreme state of disrepair, a phrase which here means "an underside of an automobile in such bad shape that it was dripping oil on him and his companion." But Tails and Shadow didn't have a moment to waste thinking of their discomfort. They had no sooner moved their fork-assisted climbing shoes out of view when Count Eggman and his companions arrived. From underneath he car, the two volunteers could see only the villain's tattoo on the filthy ankle above his left shoe and a pair of very stylish pumps, decorated with glitter and tiny paintings of eyes, that could only belong to Eudora Squalor.

"All we've had to eat all day is that smoked salmon, and it's almost dinnertime," Count Eggman said. "You'd better get cooking, orphan."

"Tomorrow is False Spring," Eudora said, "and it would be very in to have a False Spring dinner."

"Did you hear that, toothy?" Eggman asked. "My girlfriend wants a stylish dinner. Get to work."

"Eggman, we need you," said a very deep voice, and Tails and Shadow saw two pairs of sinister black shoes appear behind the villain and his girlfriend, whose shoes twitched nervously at the sight of them. All of a sudden, it seemed much colder underneath the car, and Tails had to push his legs against the tires, so they would not shiver against the mechanics of the underside and be heard.

"Yes, Eggman," agreed the hoarse voice of the man with a beard but no hair, although Tails and Shadow could not see him. "Our recruitment plan will happen first thing in the morning so we need you to help spread the net out on the ground."

"Can't you ask one of our employees?" asked Eudora. "There's the hook-handed fox the two white-faced women, and the three freaks we picked up at the carnival. That's eight people, if you include yourselves, to spread out the net. Why should we do it?"

The four black shoes stepped toward Eudora's stylish pumps and Eggman's tattoo. "You'll do it," said the woman with hair but no beard, "because I say so."

There was a long, ominous pause, and then Count Eggman gave a little high-pitched laugh. "That's a good point," he said. "C….C…..Come on, Eudora. We've bossed around the baby, so there's nothing else to do around here anyway."

"That's true," Eudora agreed. "In fact, I was thinking about taking up smoking again, because I'm bored. Do you have any more of those green cigarettes?"

"I'm afraid not," replied the man with a beard but no hair, leading the villains away from the car. "That's the only one I found."

"That's too bad," Eudora said. "I don't like the taste or the smell, and they're very bad for you, but cigarettes are very in and I'd like to smoke another one."

"Maybe there's another one in the ruins of headquarters," said the woman with hair but no beard. "It's hard to find everything in all those ashes. We searched for days and couldn't find the sugar bowl."

"Not in front of the baby," Eggman said quickly, and the four pairs of shoes walked away. Tails and Shadow stayed underneath the car until Sonic said "Coastkleer," which meant something like, "It's safe to come out now."

"Those were terrible people," Shadow said with a shudder,

brushing oil and grime off his coat. "They made me feel cold all over."

"They certainly had an aura of menace " Tails agreed in a whisper. "The feet with the tattoo were Count Eggman, and those glittery shoes were Eudora Squalor, but who were the other two, Sonic?"

"Unno Narsonist," Sonic murmured. He meant something along the lines of "I don't know, but they burned down V.F.D. headquarters," and Tails was quick to explain this to Shadow.

"Amy has found an important message that survived the fire," Tails said. "By the time we take you down the waterfall, I'm sure she'll have decoded the message. Come on."

"Nogo," Sonic said, which meant "I don't think I ought to accompany you."

"Why on earth not?" Tails asked. "Unasanc," Sonic said.

"Sonic says that the villains have mentioned one more safe place for volunteers to gather," Tails explained to Shadow.

"Do you know where it is?" Shadow asked. Sonic shook his head. "Eggmanile," he said.

"But if Count Eggman has the Snicket file," Tails said, "how are you going to find out where this safe place is?"

"Matahari," he said, which meant something like, "If I stay, I can spy on them and find out."

"Absolutely not," Tails said, after he had translated. "It's not safe for you to stay here, Sonic. It's bad enough that Eggman has made you do the cooking."

"Lox," Sonic pointed out.

"But what are you going to make for a False Spring dinner?"

Tails asked.

Sonic gave his brother a smile, and walked over to the trunk of the car. Tails and Shadow heard him rummaging around among the remaining groceries, but stayed put so Eggman or any of his associates wouldn't spot them. When Sonic returned, he had a triumphant smile on his face, and the frozen hunk of spinach, the large bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the enormous eggplant in her arms. "False spring rolls!" she said, which meant something like, "An assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, prepared in honor of False Spring."

"I'm surprised you can even carry that eggplant, let alone prepare it," Tails said. "It must weigh as much as you do."

"Suppertunity," Sonic said. he meant something like, "Serving the troupe dinner will be a perfect chance to listen to their conversation," and Tails reluctantly translated.

"It sounds dangerous," Shadow said.

"Of course it's dangerous," Tails said. "If he's caught spying, who knows what they'll do?"

"Ga ga goo goo," Sonic said, which meant "I won't be caught, because they think I'm only a helpless baby."

"I think your brother is right," Shadow said. "It wouldn't be safe to carry him down the waterfall, anyway. We need our hands and feet for the climb. Let Sonic investigate the mystery he's most likely to solve, while we work on an escape plan."

Tails shook his head. "I don't want to leave my brother behind," he said. "The Hedges should never be separated."

"Separate Amy," Sonic pointed out.

"If there's another place where volunteers are gathering," Shadow said, "we need to know where it is. Sonic can find out for us, but only if he stays here."

"I'm not going to leave my baby brother on top of a mountain," Tails said.

Sonic dropped his vegetables on the ground and walked over to his brother and smiled. "I'm not a baby," Sonic said, and hugged him. It was the longest sentence the youngest Hedge had ever said, and as Tails looked down at his brother, he saw how true it was.

Sonic was not really a baby, not anymore. He was a young boy with unusually sharp teeth, a very fast runner, some impressive cooking skills, and an opportunity to spy on a group of villains and discover a piece of crucial information. Sometime, during the unfortunate events that had befallen the three orphans, Sonic had grown out of his babyhood, and although it made Tails a bit sad to think about it, it made him proud, too, and he gave his brother a smile.

"I guess you're right," Tails said. "You're not a baby. But be careful, Sonic. You're a young boy, but it's still quite dangerous for a young boy to spy on villains. And remember, we're right at the bottom of the slope, Sonic. If you need us, just signal again."

Sonic opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a sound, the three children heard a long, lazy hissing noise from underneath Eggman's car, as if one of Dr. Knuckles' snakes were hiding there. The car shifted lightly, and Tails pointed to one of Eggman's tires, which had gone flat. "I must have punctured it," Tails said, "with my fork-assisted climbing shoes."

"I suppose that's not a nice thing to do," Shadow said, "but I can't say I'm sorry."

"How's dinner coming along, toothface?" called Count Eggman's cruel voice over the sound of the wind.

"I guess we'd better leave before we're discovered," Tails said, giving his brother one more hug and a kiss on the top of his head. "We'll see you soon, Sonic."

"Good-bye, Sonic," Shadow said. "I'm so glad we finally met in person. And thank you very much for helping us find the last safe

place."

Sonic Hedge looked up at Shadow, and then at his older brother, and gave them both a big, happy smile that showed all of his impressive teeth and ran to hug them. After spending so much time in the company of villains, he was happy to be with some people who respected his skills, appreciated his work, and understood his way of speaking.

Even with Amy still at the bottom of the waterfall, Sonic felt as if he had already been happily reunited with his family, and that his time in the Mortmain Mountains would have a happy ending. he was wrong about that of course, but for now the youngest Hedge smiled up at these two people who cared about him, one he had just met and one he had known his entire life, and felt as if he were growing taller at that very moment.

"Happy," said the young boy, and everyone who heard him knew what he was talking about.

CHAPTER Eleven

If you ever look at a picture of someone who has just had an idea, you might notice a drawing of a lightbulb over the person's head. Of course, there is not usually a lightbulb hovering in the air when someone has an idea, but the image of a lightbulb over someone's head has become a sort of symbol for thinking, just as the image of an eye, sadly, has become a symbol for crime and devious behavior rather than integrity, the prevention of fire, and being well-read.

As Tails and Shadow climbed back down the slippery slope of the frozen waterfall, their fork-assisted climbing shoes poking into the ice with each step, they looked down and saw, by the last light of the setting sun, the figure of Amy. She was holding a flashlight over her head to help the two climbers find their way down, but it looked as if she'd just had an idea.

"She must have found a flashlight in the wreckage," Shadow said. "It looks like the one Chocolate gave me."

"I hope she found enough information to decode Verbal Fridge Dialogue," Tails said, and tapped the candelabra below his feet. "Be careful here, Shadow. The ice feels thin. We'll have to climb around it."

"The ice has been less solid on our way down," Shadow said.

"That's not surprising," Tails said. "We've poked a great deal of it with forks. By the time False Spring arrives, this whole slope will probably only be half frozen."

"By the time False Spring arrives," Shadow said, "I hope we'll be on our way to the last safe place."

"Me, too," Tails said quietly, and the two climbers said no more until they reached the bottom of the waterfall and walked carefully across the frozen pool along the path Amy shone with her flashlight.

"I'm so glad you returned in one piece," Amy said, shining her flashlight in the direction of the dining room remains, trying not to show her blush. "It looked like a very slippery journey. It's getting cold, but if we sit behind the library entrance, we'll be away from much of the wind."

But Tails was so eager to tell his sister who they had found at the top of the peak that he could not wait another moment. "It's Sonic," he said. "Sonic's at the top. It was him who was signalling us."

"Sonic?" Amy said, her eyes as wide as her smile. "How did he get up there? Is he safe? Why didn't you bring him back?"

"he's safe," Tails said. "he's with Count Eggman, but he's safe." "Has he harmed him?" Amy asked.

Tails shook her head. "No," she said. "He's making her do all the cooking and cleaning."

"But she's a baby!" Amy said.

"Not anymore," Tails said. "We haven't noticed, Amy, but he's grown up quite a bit. he's really too young to be in charge of all the chores, of course, but sometime, during all the hardship we've been through, he stopped being a baby."

"he's old enough to eavesdrop," Shadow said. "he's already discovered who burned down the V.F.D. headquarters."

"They're two terrible people, a man and a woman, who have quite an aura of menace," Tails said. "Even Count Eggman is afraid of them."

"What are they all doing up there?" Amy asked.

"They're having some sort of villainous meeting," Shadow said. "We heard them mention something about a recruitment plan, and a

large net."

"That doesn't sound pleasant," Amy said.

"There's more, Amy," Tails said. "Count Eggman has the Snicket file, and he found out about some secret location – the last safe place where the V.F.D. can gather. That's why Sonic stayed up there. If he overhears where the place is, we'll know where to go to meet up with the rest of the volunteers."

"I hope he manages to find out," Amy said. "Without that piece of information, all that I've discovered is useless."

"What have you discovered?" Shadow asked.

"I'll show you," Amy said blushing, and led the way to the ruins of the library, where Tails could see she'd been working. Her dark blue notebook was open, and he could see that several pages were filled with notes. Nearby were several half-burnt scraps of paper, stacked underneath a burnt teacup Amy was using for a paperweight, a computer monitor that she used as a writing table, and all of the contents of the refrigerator were laid out in a careful half circle: the jar of mustard, the container of olives, three jars of jam, and the very fresh dill. The small glass jug, containing one pickle, and the bottle of lemon juice were off to one side. "This is some of the most difficult research I've ever done," Amy said, sitting down next to his notebook. "Justice Strauss's legal library was confusing, and Aunt Sticks's grammatical library was dull, but the ruined

V.F.D. library is a much bigger challenge. Even if I know what book I'm looking for, it may be nothing but ashes."

"Did you find anything about Verbal Fridge Dialogue?" Shadow asked, sitting beside her, blushing.

"Not at first," Amy said. "The scrap of paper that led us to the refrigerator was in a large pile of ashes, and it took a while to sift through it. But I finally found one page that was probably from the same book." She reached for her notebook and held up her flashlight so she could see the pages. "The page was so delicate," she said, "that T immediately copied it into my commonplace book. It explains how

the whole code works."

"Read it to us," Tails said, and Amy complied, a word which here means "followed Tails' suggestion and read a very complicated paragraph out loud, explaining it as she went along."

"'Verbal Fridge Dialogue,'" she read, '"is an emergency communication system that avails itself of the more esoteric products in a refrigerator. Volunteers will know such a code is being used by the presence of very fr – '" She looked up from her notebook. "The sentence ends there," she said, "but I assume that 'very fr' is the beginning of 'very fresh dill.' If very fresh dill is in the refrigerator, that means there's a message there, too."

"I understand that part," Tails said, "but what does 'esoteric' mean?"

"In this case," Amy said, "I think it refers to things that aren't used very much – the things that stay in the refrigerator for a long time."

"Like mustard and jam and things like that," Tails said. "I understand."

"'The receiver of the message should find his or her initials, as noted by one of our poet volunteers, as follows,'" Amy continued. "And then there's a short poem:

 _"The darkest of the jams of three contains within the addressee._ "

"That's a couplet," Shadow said, "like my sister writes."

"I don't think your sister wrote that particular poem," Tails said. "This code was probably invented before your sister was born."

"That's what I thought," Amy said, "but it made me wonder who taught Sonia about couplets. They might have been a volunteer."

"She had a poetry teacher when we were young," Shadow said,

"but I never met him. I always had cartography class."

"And your mapmaking skills," Tails said, "led us to the headquarters."

"And your inventing skills," Amy said, "allowed you to climb up to Mount Fraught."

"And your researching skills are helping us now," Tails said. "It's as if we were being trained for all this, and we didn't even know it."

"I never thought of learning about maps as training," Shadow said. "I just liked it."

"Well, I haven't had much training in poetry," Amy said, "but the couplet seems to say that inside the darkest jar of jam is the name of the person who's supposed to get the message."

Tails looked down at the three jars of jam. "There's apricot, strawberry, and boysenberry," she said. "Boysenberry's the darkest."

Amy nodded, and unscrewed the cap from the jar of boysenberry jam. "Look inside," she said, and shined the flashlight so Tails and Shadow could see. Someone had taken a knife and written two letters in the surface of the jam: J and S.

"J.S.," Shadow said. "Jacques Snicket. The real name of Chocolate."

"The message can't be for Chocolate Snicket " Tails said. "He's dead."

"Maybe whoever wrote this message doesn't know that," Amy said, and continued to read from the commonplace book. '"Or it could be for someone with the initials J.S. If necessary, the dialogue uses a cured, fruit-based calendar for days of the week in order to announce a gathering. Sunday is represented by a lone – ' Here it's cut off again, but I think that means that these olives are an encoded way of communicating which day of the week a gathering will take place, with Sunday being one olive, Monday being two, and so on."

"How many olives are in that container?" Shadow asked.

"Five," Amy said, wrinkling her nose. "I didn't like counting them.

Ever since the Squalors fixed us aqueous martinis, the taste of olives hasn't really appealed to me."

"Five olives means Thursday," Tails said.

"Today's Friday," Shadow said. "The gathering of the volunteers is less than a week away.

The two Hedges nodded in agreement, and Amy opened her notebook again. '"Any spice-based condiment,'" he read, "'should have a coded label referring volunteers to encoded poems.'"

"I don't think I understand," Shadow said.

Amy sighed, blushed, and reached for the jar of mustard. "This is where it really gets complicated. Mustard is a spice-based condiment, and according to the code, it should refer us to a poem of some sort."

"How can mustard refer us to a poem?" Tails asked.

Amy smiled. "I was puzzled for a long time," she said, "but I finally thought to look at the list of ingredients. Listen to this: 'Vinegar, mustard seed, salt, tumeric, the final quatrain of the eleventh stanza of "The Garden of Proserpine," by Algernon Charles Swinburne, and calcium disodium, an allegedly natural preservative.' A quatrain is four lines of a poem, and a stanza is another word for a verse. They hid a reference to a poem in the list of ingredients."

"It's the perfect place to hide something," Tails said. "No one ever reads those lists very carefully. But did you find the poem?"

Amy frowned, and lifted the teacup. "Under a burnt wooden sign marked 'Poetry,' I found a pile of papers that were burned practically beyond recognition," she said, "but here's the one surviving scrap, and it's the last quatrain of the eleventh stanza of 'The Garden of Proserpine,' by Algernon Charles Swinburne."

"That's convenient," Shadow said.

"A little _too_ convenient," Amy said. "The entire library was destroyed, and the one poem that survived is the one we need. It can't be a coincidence." She held out the scrap of paper so Tails and Shadow could see it. "It's as if someone knew we'd be looking for this."

"What does the quatrain say?" Tails asked.

"It's not very cheerful," Amy said, and tilted the flashlight so he could read it:

 _"That no life lives forever;_

 _That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea._ "

The children shivered, and moved so they were sitting even closer together on the ground. It had grown darker, and Amy's flashlight was practically the only thing they could see. If you have ever found yourself sitting in darkness with a flashlight, you may have experienced the feeling that something is lurking just beyond the circle of light that a flashlight makes, and reading a poem about dead men is not a good way to make yourself feel better.

"I wish Sonia were here," Shadow said. "She could tell us what that poem means."

 _"Even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea,"_ Tails repeated. "Do you think that refers to the last safe place?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "I couldn't find anything else that would help us."

"What about the lemon juice?" Tails asked. "And the pickle?"

Amy shook her head, although her brother could scarcely see her in the dark. "There might be more to the message," she said, "but it's all gone up in smoke. I couldn't find anything more in the library

that seemed helpful."

Tails took the scrap of paper from his sister and looked at the quatrain. "There's something very faint here," she said. "Something written in pencil, but it's too faint to read."

Shadow reached into his backpack. "I forgot we have two flashlights," he said, and shone a second light onto the paper. Sure enough, there was one word, written very faintly in pencil beside the last four lines of the poem's eleventh stanza. Tails, Amy, and Shadow leaned in as far as they could to see what it was. The night winds rustled the fragile paper, and made the children shiver, shaking the flashlights, but at last the light shone on the quatrain and they could see what words were there.

"Sugar bowl," they said in unison, and looked at one another. "What could that mean?" Amy asked.

Tails sighed. "When we were hiding underneath the car," she said to Shadow, "one of those villains said something about searching for a sugar bowl, remember?"

Shadow nodded, and took out his dark red notebook. "Chocolate Snicket mentioned a sugar bowl once," he said, "when we were in Dr. Knuckles' library. He said it was very important to find it. I wrote it down on the top of a page in my commonplace book, so I could add any information I learned about its whereabouts." He held up the page so the two Hedges could see that it was blank. "I never learned anything more," he said.

Amy sighed. "It seems that the more we learn, the more mysteries we find. We reached V.F.D. headquarters and decoded a message, and all we know is that there's one last safe place, and volunteers are gathering there on Thursday."

"That might be enough," Tails said, "if Sonic finds out where the safe place is."

"But how are we going to get Sonic away from Count Eggman?" Amy

asked.

"With your fork-assisted climbing shoes," Shadow said. "We can climb up there again, and sneak away with Sonic."

Tails shook his head. "The moment they noticed Sonic was gone," he said, "they would find us. From Mount Fraught, they can see everything and everyone for miles and miles, and we're hopelessly outnumbered."

"That's true," Shadow admitted. "There are ten villains up there, and only four of us. Then how are we going to rescue him?"

"Eggman has someone we love," Amy said thoughtfully. "If we had something he loves, we could trade it for Sonic's return. What does Count Eggman love?"

"Money," Tails said.

"Fire," Shadow said.

"We don't have any money," Amy said, "and Eggman won't trade Sonic for a fire. There must be something he really loves – something that makes him happy, and would make him very unhappy if it were taken away."

Tails and Shadow looked at one another and smiled. "Count Eggman loves Eudora Squalor," Tails said. "If we were holding Eudora prisoner, we could arrange a trade."

"That's true," Amy said, "but we're not holding Eudora prisoner."

"We could take her prisoner," Shadow said, and everyone was quiet. Taking someone prisoner, of course, is a villainous thing to do, and when you think of doing a villainous thing – even if you have a very good reason for thinking of doing it – it can make you feel like a villain, too. Lately, the Hedges had been doing things like wearing disguises and helping burn down a carnival, and were beginning to feel more and more like villains themselves. But Tails and Amy had never done anything as villainous as taking somebody prisoner, and as they looked at Shadow they could tell

that he felt just as uncomfortable, sitting in the dark and thinking up a villainous plan.

"How would we do it?" Amy asked quietly.

"We could lure her to us," Tails said, "and trap her."

Shadow wrote something down in his commonplace book. "We could use the Verdant Flammable Devices," he said. "Eudora thinks they're cigarettes, and she thinks cigarettes are in. If we lit some of them, she might smell the smoke and come down here."

"But then what?" Amy asked.

Tails shivered in the cold, and reached into his pocket. His fingers bumped up against the large bread knife, which he had almost forgotten was there, and then found what he was looking for. he took the ribbon out of his pocket and tied his bangs up, to keep it out of his eyes. The eldest Hedge could scarcely believe he was using his inventing skills to think up a trap. "The easiest trap to build," he said, "is a pit. We could dig a deep hole, and cover it up with some of this half-burned wood so Eudora couldn't see it. The wood has been weakened by the fire, so when he steps on it. . ."

Tails did not finish his sentence, but by the glow of the flashlights, he could see that Amy and Shadow were both nodding. "Hunters have used traps like that for centuries," Amy said, "to capture wild animals."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Tails said.

"How could we dig such a pit?" Shadow said.

"Well," Tails said, "we don't really have any tools, so we probably have to use our hands. As the pit got deeper, we'd have to use something to carry the dirt away."

"I still have that pitcher," Amy said.

"And we'd need a way to make sure that we wouldn't get trapped

ourselves," Tails said.

"I have a rope," Shadow said, "in my backpack. We could tie one end to the archway, and use it to climb out."

Tails reached his hand down to the ground The dirt was very cold, but quite loose, and he saw that they could dig a pit without too much trouble. "Is this the right thing to do?" Tails asked. "Do you think this is what our parents would do?"

"Our parents aren't here," Amy said. "They might have been here once, but they're not here now."

The children were quiet again, and tried to think as best they could in the cold and the dark. Deciding on the right thing to do in a situation is a bit like deciding on the right thing to wear to a party. It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier. It might seem right to wear a navy blue suit, for instance, but when you arrive there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being handcuffed due to a case of mistaken identity. It might seem right to wear your favorite pair of shoes, but there could be a sudden flood at the party, and your shoes would be ruined. And it might seem right to wear a suit of armor to the party, but there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being caught in a flood due to a case of mistaken identity, and find yourself drifting out to sea wishing that you were wearing deep-sea diving equipment after all. The truth is that you can never be sure if you have decided on the right thing until the party is over, and by then it is too late to go back and change your mind, which is why the world is filled with people doing terrible things and wearing ugly clothing, and so few volunteers who are able to stop them.

"I don't know if it's the right thing to do," Tails said, "but Count Eggman captured Sonic, and we might have to capture someone ourselves, in order to stop him."

Amy nodded solemnly. "We'll fight fire " she said grimly, "with fire."

"Then we'd better get started," Shadow said and stood up. "When the sun rises, we can light the Verdant Flammable Devices with the mirror again, like we did when we were signaling Sonic."

"If we want the pit to be ready by dawn," Tails said, "we'll have to dig all night."

"Where shall we put the pit?" Amy asked.

"In front of the entrance," Tails decided. "Then we can hide behind the arch when Eudora approaches."

"How will we know when she's fallen in," Shadow asked, "if we can't see her?"

"We'll hear it," Tails replied. "We'll hear the breaking of the wood, and Eudora might scream."

Amy shuddered. "That's not going to be a pleasant sound."

"We're not in a pleasant situation," Tails said, and the eldest Hedge was right. It was not pleasant to kneel down in front of the ruined library entrance, and dig through the ashes and dirt with their bare hands by the light of two flashlights, as all four drafts of the valley blew around them. It was not pleasant for Tails and his sister to carry the dirt away in the pitcher, while Shadow tied his rope to the iron archway, so they could climb in and out as the pit grew bigger and deeper, like an enormous dark mouth opening wider and wider to swallow them whole. It was not even pleasant to pause and eat a carrot to keep up their energy, or to gaze at the shiny white shape of the frozen waterfall as it glinted in the moonlight, imagining Eudora Squalor, lured by the smoke of the Verdant Flammable Devices, approaching the ruined headquarters to become their prisoner. But the least pleasant part of the situation wasn't the cold dirt, or the freezing winds, or even their own exhaustion as it grew later and later and the children dug deeper and deeper. The least pleasant part was the idea, shared by the two

Hedges and their new friend, that they might be doing a villainous thing.

The siblings were not sure if digging a deep pit to trap someone, in order to trade prisoners with a villain, was something that their parents or any other volunteers would do, but with so many of the

V.F.D. secrets lost in the ashes, it was impossible to know for sure, and this uncertainty haunted them with every pitcherful of dirt, and every climb up the rope, and every piece of weakened wood they laid on top of the pit to hide it from view.

As the first rays of the morning sun appeared on the misty horizon, the elder Hedges gazed up at the waterfall. At the summit of the Mortmain Mountains, they knew, was a group of villains, from whom Sonic was hopefully learning the location of the last safe place. But as Tails and Amy lowered their gaze to their own handiwork, and looked at the dark, deep pit Shadow had helped them dig, they could not help wondering if there were also a group of villains at the bottom of the slippery slope. As they looked at the villainous thing they had made, the three volunteers could not help wondering if they were villains, too, and this was the least pleasant feeling in the world.

CHAPTER Twelve

Not too long ago, in the Swedish city of Stockholm, a group of bank robbers took a few prisoners during the course of their work. For several days, the bank robbers and the prisoners lived together in close proximity, a word which here means "while the police gathered outside and eventually managed to arrest the robbers and take them to jail." When the prisoners were finally freed, however, the authorities discovered that they had become friends with the bank robbers, and since that time the expression "Stockholm Syndrome" has been used to describe a situation in which someone becomes friendly with the people who are holding them prisoner.

There is another expression, however, which describes a situation that is far more common, when a prisoner does not become friends with such people, but instead regards them as villains, and despises them more and more with each passing moment, waiting desperately for an opportunity to escape. The expression is "Mount Fraught Syndrome," and Sonic Hedge was experiencing it as he stood at the top of Mount Fraught, gazing down at the frozen waterfall and thinking about her circumstances.

The young boy had spent another sleepless night in the covered casserole dish, after washing the salmon out of it with a few handfuls of melted snow. It was chilly, of course, with the winds of the Mortmain Mountains blowing through the holes in the lid, and it was painful, because once again his teeth were chattering in the cold and giving him tiny cuts on his lips, but there was another reason Sonic did not sleep well, which is that he was frustrated. Despite his best spying attempts, the youngest Hedge had been unable to eavesdrop on the villains' conversation and learn the

location of the last safe place where V.F.D. would be gathering, or learn any more about the dreadful recruitment scheme planned by the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard. When the troupe gathered around the flat rock for dinner, they discussed these things, but every time Sonic tried to get close enough to hear what they were saying, they glared at him and quickly changed the subject. It seemed to Sonic that the only thing he had accomplished all evening was preparing a meal that the troupe enjoyed. When he had presented her platter of False Spring Rolls, no one had complained, and every single villainous person had taken second helpings.

But something crucial had escaped the attention of Count Eggman and his comrades during the meal, and for that Sonic was very grateful. As he had told his siblings, the youngest Hedge had prepared an assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, in honor of False Spring. Her recipe had required the bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the frozen hunk of spinach, which he had thawed by holding it underneath his shirt, as he had when preparing toast tartar. But Sonic had decided at the last minute that he would not use the enormous eggplant. When Tails mentioned that the eggplant must weigh as much as Sonic did, the youngest Hedge had an idea, and rather than chopping the eggplant into small strips with his teeth, he hid it behind the flat tire of Count Eggman's car, and now, as the sun rose and the group of villains began their usual morning bickering, he was retrieving the eggplant and rolling it to the casserole dish. As she rolled it past the automobile, Sonic looked down at the frozen waterfall, which was looking less and less frozen in the morning sun. he knew his siblings were at the bottom with Shadow, and although he couldn't see them, it made him feel better knowing they were relatively nearby and that, if his plan worked out, he would soon be joining them.

"What are you doing, baby?" Sonic had just slipped the eggplant under the cover of the casserole dish when she heard the voice of one of Eggman's comrades. The two white-faced women were standing

just outside their tent and stretching in the morning sun.

"Aubergine," Sonic replied, which meant "I've concocted a plan involving this eggplant, and it doesn't matter if I tell you about it because you never understand a single word I say."

"More babytalk," said the other white-faced woman with a sigh. "I'm beginning to think that Sonic is only a helpless baby, and not a spy."

"Goo goo ga – " Sonic began, but the flap of Count Eggman's tent opened before she could utter the last "ga." The villain and his girlfriend stood in the morning sun, and it was clear that they expected the new day – Saturday – to be an important one, because they were dressed for the occasion, a phrase which here means "wearing such strange clothing that the youngest Hedge was too surprised to say the final 'ga' she had been planning." Amazingly, it appeared that Count Eggman had washed his face, and he was wearing a brand-new suit made out of material that at first seemed to be covered in tiny polka dots. But when Sonic took a closer look, she saw that each dot was a small eye, matching Eggman's tattoo and the

V.F.D. insignia and all of the other eyes that had plagued the Hedges since that terrible day on the beach, so that looking at Count Eggman in his new suit felt like looking at a crowd of villains, all staring at Sonic Hedge. But no matter how unnerving Eggman's fashion choice was, Eudora Squalor's outfit was worse to behold. Sonic could not remember when he had ever seen a dress so enormous, and was surprised that such an article of clothing could have fit in the tent and still leave room for villains to sleep. The dress was made of layers upon layers of shiny cloth, in different shades of yellow, orange, and red, all cut in fierce triangular shapes so that each layer seemed to cut into the next, and rising from the shoulders of the dress were enormous piles of black lace, sticking up into the air in strange curves. For a moment, the dress was so huge and odd that Sonic could not imagine why anyone would wear it, but as the wicked girlfriend stepped farther out of the tent, it

became horribly clear. Eudora Squalor was dressed to look like an enormous fire.

"What a wonderful morning!" Count Eggman crowed. "Just think, by the end of the day I'll have more new members of my troupe than ever before!"

"And we'll need them," Eudora agreed "We're all going to have to work together for the greater good – burning down the last safe place!"

"Just the idea of the Hotel Denouement in flames makes me so excited, I'm going to open a bottle of wine!" Count Eggman announced, and Sonic covered his mouth with his hands so the villains would not hear him gasp. The Hotel Denouement, he realized, must be the last safe place for volunteers to gather, and Eggman was so excited that he had uttered the name inadvertently, a word which here means "where the youngest Hedge could hear it."

"The idea of all those eagles filling the sky makes me so excited, I'm going to smoke one of those in green cigarettes!" Eudora announced, and then frowned. "Except I don't have one. Drat."

"Beg your pardon, your Eudoraship," said one of the white-faced women, "but I see some of that green smoke down at the bottom of the waterfall."

"Really?" Eudora asked eagerly, and looked in the direction Eggman's employee was pointing. Sonic looked, too, and saw a familiar plume of green smoke at the very bottom of the slope, getting bigger and bigger as the sun continued to rise. The youngest Hedge wondered why her siblings were signaling him, and what they were trying to say.

"That's strange," Eggman said. "You'd think there'd be nothing left of the headquarters to burn."

"Look how much smoke there is," Eudora said greedily. "There must be a whole pack of cigarettes down there. This day is getting even

better!"

Count Eggman smiled, and then looked away from the waterfall and noticed Sonic for the first time. "I'll have the baby go down and get them for you," Count Eggman said.

"Yes sir!" Sonic said pretending to sound miserable but is atchually egar.

"The baby would probably steal all the cigarettes for himself," Eudora said, glaring at Sonic. "I'll go."

"But climbing down there will take hours " Eggman said. "Don't you want to be here for the recruitment scheme? I just love springing traps on people."

"Me, too," Eudora agreed, "but don't worry, Eggman. I'll be back in moments. I'm not going to climb. I'll take one of the toboggans and sled down the waterfall before anyone else even notices I'm gone."

"Drat!" Sonic couldn't help saying. he meant something along the lines of, "That is exactly what I was planning on doing," but once again no one understood.

"Shut up, toothy," Eudora said, "and get out of my way." he flounced past the youngest Hedge, and Sonic realized that there was something sewn to the bottom of the dress that made it make a crackling noise as he walked, so that the wicked girlfriend sounded as much like a fire as she looked like one. Blowing a kiss to Count Eggman, she grabbed the toboggan belonging to the sinister villains.

"I'll be right back, darling," Eudora said. "Tell that baby to take a nap so she won't see what we're up to."

"Eudora's right," Eggman said, giving Sonic a cruel smile. "Get in the casserole dish. You're such an ugly, helpless creature, I can scarcely stand to look at you."

"You said it, handsome," Eudora said, and chuckled meanly as she sat at the top of the waterfall. The two white-faced women scurried to help, and gave the toboggan a big push as Sonic did as she was

told, and disappeared from Eggman's sight.

As you may imagine, the sight of a grown woman in an enormous flame-imitating dress tobogganing down from the source of the Stricken Stream to the two tributaries and the half-frozen pool at the bottom of the waterfall is not the sort of thing to pass unnoticed, even from far away. Tails was the first to see the colorful blur heading quickly down the slope, and he lowered Rosy's hand mirror, which he had used once again to catch the rays of the rising sun and reflect them onto the Verdant Flammable Devices, which he had put in a pile in front of the pit. Wrinkling his nose from the bitter smell of the smoke, he turned to Amy and Shadow, who were putting one last piece of weakened wood across the pit, so their trap would be hidden from view.

"Look," Tails said, and pointed to the descending shape.

"Do you think it's Eudora?" Amy asked.

Tails squinted up at the tobogganing figure. "I think so," she said. "Nobody but Eudora Squalor would wear an outfit like that."

"We'd better hide behind the archway," Shadow said, "before she spots us."

The two Hedges nodded in agreement, blushed, and walked carefully to the library entrance, making sure to step around the hole they had dug.

"I'm happy that we can't see the pit anymore," Amy said. "Looking into that blackness reminded me of that terrible passageway at 667 Dark Avenue."

"First Eudora trapped your siblings there," Tails said to Shadow, "and then she trapped us."

"And now we're fighting fire with fire, and trapping her," Shadow said uncomfortably.

"It's best not to think about it," Tails said, although he had not stopped thinking about the trap since the first handful of ashes and

earth. "Soon we'll have Sonic back, and that's what's important."

"Maybe this is important, too," Amy said, and pointed up at the archway. "I never noticed it until now."

Tails and Shadow looked up to see what he was referring to, and saw four tiny words etched over their heads, right underneath the large letters spelling "V.F.D. Library."

"'The world is quiet here,'" Shadow read. "What do you think it means?"

"It looks like a motto," Amy said. "At Prufrock Preparatory School, they had a motto carved near the entrance, so everyone would remember it when they entered the academy."

Tails shook his head. "That's not what I'm thinking of," he said. "I'm remembering something about that phrase, but just barely."

"The world certainly feels quiet around here," Amy said. "We haven't heard a single snow gnat since we arrived."

"The smell of smoke scares them away, remember?" Shadow asked.

"Of course," Amy said, and peered around the archway to check on Eudora's progress. The colorful blur was about halfway down the waterfall, heading straight for the trap they had built. "There's been so much smoke here at headquarters, the gnats might never come back."

"Without snow gnats," Shadow said, "the salmon of the Stricken Stream will go hungry. They feed on snow gnats." He reached into his pocket and opened his commonplace book.

"And without salmon," he said, "the Mortmain Mountain eagles will go hungry. The destruction of V.F.D, headquarters has caused even more damage than I thought."

Amy nodded in agreement. "When we were walking along the Stricken Stream," he said, "the fish were coughing from all the

ashes in the water. Remember, Tails?"

She turned to her brother, but Tails was only half listening. he was still gazing at the words on the archway, and trying to remember where she heard them before. "I can just hear those words," he said. _"The world is quiet here._ " He closed her eyes. "I think it was a very long time ago, before you were born, Amy."

"Maybe someone said them to you," Shadow said.

Tails tried to remember as far back as he could, but everything seemed as misty as it did in the mountains. he could see the face of his mother, and his father standing behind him, wearing a suit as black as the ashes of V.F.D. headquarters. Their mouths were open, but Tails could not remember what they were saying. No matter how hard he tried, the memory was as silent as the grave. "Nobody said them to me," he said finally. "Someone _sang_ them. I think my parents sang the words 'the world is quiet here' a long time ago, but I don't know why." he opened his eyes and faced his sister and his friend. "I think we might be doing the wrong thing," he said.

"But we agreed," Shadow said, "to fight fire with fire."

Tails nodded, and stuck his hands in his pocket, bumping up against the bread knife again. he thought of the darkness of the pit, and the scream Eudora would make as he fell into it. "I know we agreed," Tails said, "but if V.F.D. really stands for Volunteer Fire Department, then they're an organization that stops fire. If everyone fought fire with fire, the entire world would go up in smoke."

"I see what you mean," Shadow said. "If the V.F.D. motto is 'The world is quiet here,' we ought to be doing something less noisy and violent than trapping someone, no matter how wicked they are."

"When I was looking into the pit," Amy said quietly, "I was remembering something I read in a book by a famous philosopher. He said, 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.'" Amy looked at her brother,

and then at the sight of Eudora approaching, and then at the weakened wood that the three children had placed on the ground. "'Abyss' is a fancy word for 'pit,'" he said. "We built an abyss for Eudora to fall into. That's something a monster might do."

Shadow was copying Amy's words into his commonplace book. "What happened to that philosopher?" he asked.

"He's dead," Amy replied. "I think you're right, Tails. We don't want to be as villainous and monstrous as Count Eggman."

"But what are we going to do?" Shadow asked. "Sonic is still Eggman's prisoner, and Eudora will be here at any moment. If we don't think of the right thing right now, it'll be too late."

As soon as the triplet finished his sentence however, the three children heard something that made them realize it might already be too late. From behind the archway, Tails, Amy, and Shadow heard a rough, scraping sound as the toboggan reached the bottom of the waterfall and slid to a halt, and then a triumphant giggle from the mouth of Eudora Squalor. The three volunteers peeked around the archway and saw the treacherous girlfriend step off the toboggan with a greedy smile on her face. But when Eudora adjusted her enormous flame-imitating dress and took a step toward the smoking Verdant Flammable Devices, Tails was not looking at her any more. Tails was looking down at the ground, just a few steps from where she was standing. Three dark, round masks were sitting in a pile, where Tails, Amy, and Shadow had left them upon arriving at the ruins of headquarters. They had assumed that they would not need them again, but the eldest Hedge realized they had been wrong. As Eudora took another step closer to the trap, Tails dashed over to the masks, put one on and stepped out of his hiding place as her brother and her friend looked on.

"Stop, Eudora!" she cried. "It's a trap!"

Eudora stopped in her tracks and gave Tails a curious look. "Who are you?" she asked. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that.

It's a villainous thing to do." "I'm a volunteer," Tails said.

Eudora's mouth, heavy with orange lipstick that matched her dress, curled into a sneer. "There are no volunteers here," she said. "The entire headquarters are destroyed!"

Amy was the next to grab a mask and confront Eggman's treacherous romantic companion.

"Our headquarters might be destroyed," she said, "but the V.F.D. is as strong as ever!"

Eudora frowned at the two siblings as if she couldn't decide whether to be frightened or not "You may be strong," she said nervously, "but you're also very short." Her dress crackled as she started to take another step toward the pit. "When I get my hands on you – "

"No!" Shadow cried, and stepped out from the arch wearing his mask, taking care not to fall into his own trap. "Don't come any closer, Eudora. If you take another step, you'll fall into our trap."

"You're making that up," Eudora said, but she did not move any closer. "You're trying to keep all the cigarettes for yourself."

"They're not cigarettes," Amy said, "and we're not liars.

Underneath the wood you're about to step on is a very deep pit."

Eudora looked at them suspiciously. Gingerly – a word which here means "without falling into a very deep hole" – she leaned down and moved a piece of wood aside, and stared down into the trap the children had built. "Well, well, well," she said. "You _did_ build a trap. I never would have fallen for it, of course, but I must admit you dug quite a pit."

"We wanted to trap you," Tails said, "so we could trade you for the safe return of Sonic Hedge. But – "

"But you didn't have the courage to go through with it," Eudora said with a mocking smile. "You volunteers are never brave enough to do

something for the greater good."

"Throwing people into pits isn't the greater good!" Shadow cried. "It's villainous treachery!"

"If you weren't such an idiot," Eudora said, "you'd realize that those things are more or less the same."

"He is not an idiot," Amy said fiercely. She knew, of course, that it was not worthwhile to get upset over insults from such a ridiculous person, but she liked Shadow too much to hear him called names. "He led us here to the headquarters using a map he drew himself."

"He's very well-read," Tails said.

At Tails' words, Eudora threw back her head and laughed, shaking the crackling layers of her enormous dress. _"Well-read!"_ she repeated in a particularly nasty tone of voice. "Being well-read won't help you in this world. Many years ago, I was supposed to waste my entire summer reading _Anna_ _Karenina,_ but I knew that silly book would never help me, so I threw it into the fireplace." She reached down and picked up a few more pieces of wood, which she tossed aside with a snicker. "Look at your precious headquarters, volunteers! It's as ruined as my book. And look at _me!_ I'm beautiful, fashionable, and I smoke cigarettes!" She laughed again, and pointed at the children with a scornful finger. "If you didn't spend all your time with your heads stuck in books, you'd have that precious baby back."

"We're going to get him back," Tails said firmly.

"Really?" Eudora said mockingly. "And how do you propose to do that?"

"I'm going to talk to Count Eggman," Tails said, "and he's going to give him back to me."

Eudora threw back her head and started to laugh, but not with as much enthusiasm as before. "What do you mean?" she said.

"Just what I said," Tails said.

"Hmmm," Eudora said suspiciously. "Let me think for a moment." The evil girlfriend began to pace back and forth on the frozen pond, her enormous dress crackling with every step.

Amy leaned in to whisper to her brother. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Do you honestly think that we can get Sonic back from Count Eggman with a simple conversation?"

"I don't know," Tails whispered back, "but it's better than luring someone into a trap."

"It was wrong to dig that pit," Shadow agreed, "but I'm not sure that walking straight into Eggman's clutches is the right thing to do, either."

"It'll take a while to reach Mount Fraught again," Tails said. "We'll think of something during the climb."

"I hope so," Amy said, "but if we can't think of something – "

Amy did not get a chance to say what might happen if they couldn't think of something because Eudora clapped her hands together to get the children's attention.

"If you really want to talk to my boyfriend," she said, "I suppose I can take you to where he is. If you weren't so stupid, you'd know that he's very nearby."

"We know where he is, Eudora," Amy said. "He's at the top of the waterfall, at the source of the Stricken Stream."

"Then I suppose you know how we can get there," Eudora said, and looked a little foolish. "The toboggan doesn't go uphill, so I actually have no idea how we can reach the peak."

"he will invent a way," Shadow said, pointing at Tails.

Tails smiled at her friend, grateful for his support, and closed her eyes underneath her mask. Once more, she was thinking of something she had heard sung to her, when she was a very little boy. he had already thought of the way that the three children

could take Eudora with them when they ascended the hill, but thinking of their journey made her think of a song she had not thought of for many years. Perhaps when you were very young, someone sang this song to you, perhaps to lull you to sleep, or to entertain you on a long car trip, or in order to teach you a secret code. The song is called "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," and it is one of the saddest songs ever composed. It tells the story of a small spider who is trying to climb up a water spout, but every time its climb is half over, there is a great burst of water, either due to rain or somebody turning the spout on, and at the end of the song, the spider has decided to try one more time, and will likely be washed away once again.

Tails Hedge could not help feeling like this poor spider as he ascended the waterfall for the last time, with Shadow and Amy hand in hand, beside him and Eudora Squalor on her toboggan behind them. After attaching the last two forks to Amy's shoes, he had told his companions to tie the leather straps of the toboggan around their waists, so they could drag the villainous girlfriend behind them as they climbed. It was exhausting to approach the peak of Mount Fraught in this manner, particularly after staying up all night digging a pit, and it seemed like they might get washed back down by the dripping water of the Stricken Stream, like the spider Tails had heard about when she was a little boy. The ice on the slope was weakening, after two fork-assisted climbs, a toboggan ride, and the increasing temperatures of False Spring, and with each step of Tails' invention, the ice would shift slightly. It was clear that the slippery slope was almost as exhausted as they were, and soon the ice would vanish completely. "Mush!" Eudora called from the toboggan. he was using an expression that arctic explorers shouted to their sled dogs, and it certainly did not make the journey any easier.

"I wish she'd stop saying that," Tails murmured from behind his mask. he tapped the candelabra on the ice ahead of him, and a small piece detached from the waterfall and fell to the ruins of headquarters. She watched it disappear below her and sighed. She

would never see the V.F.D. headquarters in all its glory. None of the Hedges would. Tails would never know how it felt to cook in the kitchen and gaze at the two tributaries of the Stricken Stream, while chatting with the other volunteers. Amy would never know how it felt to relax in the library and learn all of the secrets of

V.F.D. in the comfort of one of the library's chairs, with his feet up on one of the matching V.F.D. footstools. Sonic would never operate the projector in the movie room, or practice the art of the fake mustache in the disguise center, or sit in the parlor at tea time and eat the almond cookies made from my grandmother's recipe. Tails would never study chemical composition in one of the six laboratories or paint in the studio, and Amy would never use the balance beams at the gymnasium or develop film in the dark room, and Sonic would never stand behind the counter at the ice cream shop and prepare butterscotch sundaes for the swimming coaches when it was her turn. Tails will never use the computer room or the observatory, and Amy will never read on the balcony and Sonic will never run on the race track or be a goalie in the football feild or play an instrument in the music room. And none of the Hedges would ever meet some of the organization's most beloved volunteers, including the mechanical instructor C. M. Kornbluth, and Dr. Isaac Anwhistle, whom everyone called Ike, and the brave volunteer who tossed the sugar bowl out the kitchen window so it would not be destroyed in the blaze, and watched it float away on one of the tributaries of the Stricken Stream. The Hedges would never do any of these things, any more than I will ever see my beloved Cream again, or retrieve my pickle from the refrigerator in which I left it, and return it to its rightful place in an important coded sandwich. Tails, of course, was not aware of everything he would never do, but as he gazed down at the vast, ashen remains of the headquarters, he felt as if his whole journey in the Mortmain Mountains had been as useless as the journey of a tiny arachnid in a song he had never liked to hear.

"Mush!" Eudora cried again, with a cruel chuckle.

"Please stop saying that, Eudora," Tails called down impatiently. "That _mush_ nonsense is slowing our climb."

"A slow climb might be to our advantage," Amy murmured to her

brother. "The longer it takes us to reach the summit, the longer we have to think up what we're going to say to Count Eggman."

"We could tell him that he's surrounded," Shadow said, "and that there are volunteers everywhere ready to arrest him if he doesn't let Sonic go free."

Tails shook his mask. "He won't believe that," he said, sticking a fork-assisted shoe into the waterfall. "He can see everything and everyone from Mount Fraught. He'll know we're the only volunteers in the area."

"There must be something we can do," Amy said. "We didn't make this journey into the mountains for nothing."

"Of course not," Shadow said. "We found each other, and we solved some of the mysteries that were haunting us."

"Will that be enough," Tails asked, "to defeat all those villains on the peak?"

Tails' question was a difficult one, and neither Amy nor Shadow had the answer, and so rather than hazard a guess – a phrase which here means "continue to expend their energy by discussing the matter" – they decided to hazard their climb, a phrase which here means "continue their difficult journey in silence, until they arrived at last at the source of the Stricken Stream." Hoisting themselves up onto the flat peak, they sat on the edge and pulled the leather straps as hard as they could. It was such a difficult task to drag Eudora Squalor and the toboggan over the edge of the slope and onto Mount Fraught that the children did not notice who was nearby until they heard a familiar scratchy voice right behind them.

"Who goes there?" Count Eggman demanded.

Breathless from the climb, the three children turned around to see the villain standing with his two sinister cohorts near his long, black automobile, glaring suspiciously at the masked volunteers.

"We thought you'd get here by taking the path," said the man with

a beard but no hair, "not by climbing up the waterfall."

"No, no, no," Eudora said quickly. "These aren't the people we're expecting. These are some volunteers I found at headquarters."

"Volunteers?" said the woman with hair but no beard, but her voice did not sound as deep as it usually did. The villains gave the children the same confused frown they had seen from Eudora, as if they were unsure whether to be scared or scornful, and the

hook-handed man, the two white-faced women, and the three former carnival employees gathered around to see what had made their villainous boss fall silent. Although they were exhausted, the two Hedges hurriedly untied the straps of the toboggan from their waists and stood with Shadow to face their enemies. The orphans were very scared, of course, but they found that with their faces concealed they could speak their minds, a phrase which here means "confront Count Eggman and his companions as if they weren't one bit frightened."

"We built a trap to capture your girlfriend, Eggman," Tails said, "but we didn't want to become a monster like you."

"They're idiotic liars!" Eudora cried. "I found them hogging the cigarettes, so I captured them myself and made them drag me up the waterfall like sled dogs."

The middle Hedge ignored the wicked girlfriend's nonsense. "We're here for Sonic Hedge," Amy said, "and we're not leaving without him."

Count Eggman frowned, and peered at them with his shiny, shiny eyes as if he were trying to see through their masks. "And what makes you so certain," he said, "that I'll give you my prisoner just because you say so?"

Tails thought furiously, looking around at his surroundings for anything that might give him an idea of what to do. Count Eggman clearly believed that the three masked people in front of him were members of V.F.D., and he felt that if he could just find the right

words to say, he could defeat him without becoming as villainous as his enemies. But he could not find the words, and neither could his sister nor his friend, who stood beside her in silence. The winds of the Mortmain Mountains blew against them, and Tails stuck his hands in his pockets, bumping one finger against the long bread knife. he began to think that perhaps trapping Eudora had been the right thing to do after all. Count Eggman's frown began to fade, and his mouth started to curl upward in a triumphant smile, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Tails saw two things that gave her hope once more. The first was the sight of two notebooks, one a deep shade of red and the other dark blue, sticking out of the pockets of her companions – commonplace books, where Amy and Shadow had written down all of the information they had found in the ruined library of V.F.D. headquarters. And the other was a collection of dishes spread out on the flat rock that Eggman's troupe had been using for a table. Sonic had been forced to wash these dishes, using handfuls of melted snow, and he had laid them out to dry in the sunshine of False Spring. Tails could see a stack of plates, each emblazoned with the familiar image of an eye, as well as a row of teacups and a small pitcher for cream. But there was something missing from the tea set, and it made Tails smile behind her mask as he turned to face Count Eggman again.

"You will give us Sonic," he said, "because we know where the sugar bowl is."

CHAPTER Thirteen

Count Eggman gasped, and raised his one eyebrow very high as he gazed at the two Hedges and their companion, his eyes shinier than they had ever seen them. _"Where is it?"_ he said, in a terrible, wheezing whisper. _"Give it to me!"_

Tails shook his head, grateful that his face was still hidden behind a mask. "Not until you give us Sonic Hedge," he said.

 _"Never!"_ the villain replied. "Without that big-toothed, abnormal quick brat, I'll never capture the Hedge fortune. You give me the sugar bowl this instant, or I'll throw all of you off this mountain!"

"If you throw us off the mountain," Amy said, "you'll never know where the sugar bowl is." She did not add, of course, that the Hedges had no idea where the sugar bowl was, what it was, or why in the world it was so important.

Eudora Squalor took a sinister step toward her boyfriend, her flame-imitating dress crackling against the cold ground. "We must have that sugar bowl," she snarled. "Let the baby go. We'll cook up another scheme to steal the fortune."

"But stealing the fortune is the greater good," Count Eggman said. "We can't let the baby go."

"Getting the sugar bowl is the greater good," Eudora said, with a frown.

"Stealing the fortune," Eggman insisted. "Getting the sugar bowl," Eudora replied. "Fortune!"

"Sugar bowl!"

 _"Fortune!" "Sugar bowl!"_

 _"Fortune!" "Sugar bowl!"_

 _"Fortune!" "Sugar bowl!"_

 _"Fortune!" "Sugar bowl!"_

 _"Fortune!" "Sugar bowl!"_

"That's enough!" ordered the man with a beard but no hair. "Our recruitment scheme is about to be put into action. We can't have you arguing all day long."

"We wouldn't have argued all day long," Count Eggman said timidly. "After a few hours – "

"We said _that's enough!"_ ordered the woman with hair but no beard. "Bring the baby over here!"

"Bring the baby at once!" Count Eggman ordered the two white-faced women. "he's napping in her casserole dish."

The two white-faced women sighed, but hurried over to the casserole dish and lifted it together, as if they were cooks removing something from the oven instead of villainous employees bringing over a prisoner, while the two sinister visitors reached down the necks of their shirts and retrieved something that was hanging around their necks. Tails and Amy were surprised to see two shiny silver whistles, like the one Count Eggman had used as part of his disguise at Prufrock Preparatory School, when he was pretending to be a coach.

"Watch this, volunteers," said the sinister man in his hoarse voice, and the two mysterious villains blew their whistles. Instantly, the children heard an enormous rustling sound over their heads, as if the Mortmain Mountain winds were as frightened as the youngsters, and it suddenly grew very dim, as if the morning sun had also put on a mask. But when they looked up, Tails, Amy, and Shadow saw that the reason for the noisy sky and the fading light was perhaps more strange than frightened winds and a masked sun. The sky above Mount Fraught was swarming with eagles. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, flying in silent circles high above the two sinister villains. They must have been nesting nearby to have arrived so quickly, and they must have been very thoroughly

trained to be so eerily silent. Some of them looked very old, old enough to have been in the skies when the Hedge parents were children themselves. Some of them looked quite young, as if they had only recently emerged from the egg and were already obeying the shrill sound of a whistle. But all of them looked exhausted, as if they would rather be anywhere else but the summit of the Mortmain Mountains, doing absolutely anything rather than following the orders of such wretched people.

"Look at these creatures!" cried the woman with hair but no beard. "When the schism occurred, you may have won the carrier crows, volunteers, and you may have won the trained reptiles."

"Not anymore," Count Eggman said. "All of the reptiles except one the in – "

"Don't interrupt," the sinister woman interrupted. "You may have the carrier crows, but we have the two most powerful mammals in the world to do our bidding – the lions and eagles!"

"Eagles aren't _mammals"_ Amy cried out in frustration. "They're

 _birds!"_

"They're _slaves,"_ said the man with a beard but no hair, and the two villains reached into the pockets of their suits and drew out two long, wicked-looking whips. Tails and Amy could see at once that they were similar to the whip Eggman had used when bossing around the lions at Caligari Carnival. With matching, sinister sneers the two mysterious villains cracked their whips in the air, and four eagles swooped down from the sky, landing on the strange thick pads that the villains had on their shoulders.

"These beasts will do anything we tell them to do," the woman said. "And today they're going to help us with our greatest triumph." She uncurled the whip and gestured to the ground around her, and the children noticed for the first time an enormous net on the ground, spread out over almost the entire peak and just stopping at their fork-assisted climbing shoes. "On my signal, these eagles will lift this net from the ground and carry it into the sky, capturing a

group of young people who think they're here to celebrate False Spring."

"The Snow Scouts," Tails said in astonishment.

"We'll capture every one of those uniformed brats," the villainous man bragged, "and each one of them will be offered the exciting opportunity to join us."

"They'll never join you," Amy said.

"Of course they will," said the sinister woman, in her deep, deep voice. "They'll either be recruited, or they'll be our prisoners. But one thing is for certain – we'll burn down every single one of their parents' homes."

The two Hedges shuddered, and even Count Eggman looked a bit uneasy. "Of course," he said quickly, "the main reason we're doing all this is to get our hands on all those fortunes."

"Of course," Eudora said with a nervous snicker. "We'll have the Spats fortune, the Kornbluth fortune, the Winnipeg fortune, the Harrison fortune, the Annis fortune, the Juarez fortune and many others. I'll be able to afford the penthouse apartment of every single building that isn't on fire!"

"Once you tell us where the sugar bowl is," said the man with a beard but no hair, "you can leave, volunteers, and take your baby friend with you. But wouldn't you rather join us?"

"No, thank you," Shadow said. "We're not interested."

"It doesn't matter if you're interested or not," said the woman with hair but no beard. "Look around you. You're hopelessly outnumbered. Wherever we go, we find new comrades who are eager to assist us in our work."

"We have comrades, too," Tails said bravely. "As soon as we rescue Sonic, we're going to meet up with the other volunteers at the last safe place, and tell them about your terrible scheme!"

"It's too late for that, volunteers," said Count Eggman in triumph.

"Here come my new recruits!"

With a horrible laugh, the villain pointed in the direction of the rocky path, and the elder Hedges could see, past the covered casserole dish still held by the white-faced women, the arrival of the uniformed Snow Scouts, walking in two neat lines, more like eggs in a carton than young people on a hike. Apparently, the scouts had realized that the snow gnats were absent from this part of the Mortmain Mountains and had removed their masks, so Tails and Amy could instantly spot Sally Spats, standing at the front of one of the lines with a tiara on her head – "tiara" is a word which here means "small crown given to a nasty little girl for no good reason" – and a large smirk on her face. Beside her, at the head of the other line, stood Max, holding the Spring pole in one hand and a big cigar in the other. There was something about his face that Tails and Amy found familiar, but they were too concerned about the villainous recruitment plan to give it much thought.

"What are all you cakesniffers doing here?" demanded Sally, in an obnoxious voice the two siblings found equally familiar. "I'm the False Spring Queen, and I order you to go away!"

"Now, now, Sally," Max said. "I'm sure these people are here to help celebrate your special day. Let's try to be accommodating. In fact we should try to be accommodating, basic, calm, darling – "

The scouts had begun to say the ridiculous pledge along with Max, but the two Hedges knew they could not wait for the entire alphabetical list to be recited. "Max," Tails interrupted quickly, "these people are not here to help you celebrate False Spring. They're here to kidnap all of the Snow Scouts."

"What?" Max asked with a smile, as if the eldest Hedge might have been joking.

"It's a trap," Amy said. "Please, turn around and lead the scouts away from here."

"Pay no attention to these three masked idiots," Count Eggman said quickly. "The mountain air has gone to their heads. Just take a few steps closer and we'll all join in a special celebration."

"We're happy to accommodate," Max said. "After all, we're accommodating, basic – "

"No!" Tails cried. "Don't you see the net on the ground? Don't you see the eagles in the sky?"

"The net is decoration," Eudora said, with a smile as false as the Spring, "and the eagles are wildlife."

"Please listen to us!" Amy said. "You're in terrible danger!"

Sally glared at the two Hedges, and adjusted her tiara. "Why should I listen to cakesniffing strangers like you?" she asked. "You're so stupid that you've still got your masks on, even though there aren't any snow gnats around here."

Tails and Amy looked at one another through their masks.

Sally's response had been quite rude, but the two siblings had to admit she had a point. The Hedges were unlikely to convince anyone that they were telling the truth while their faces were unnecessarily covered. They did not want to sacrifice their disguises and reveal their true identities to Count Eggman and his troupe, but they couldn't risk the kidnapping of all the Snow Scouts, even to save their sister. The two Hedges nodded at one another, and then turned to see that Shadow was nodding, too, and the three children reached up and took off their masks for the greater good.

Count Eggman's mouth dropped open in surprise. "You're dead!" he said to the eldest Hedge, saying something that he knew full well was ridiculous. "You perished in the caravan, along with Amy!"

Eudora stared at Amy, looking just as astonished as her boyfriend. "You're dead, too!" she cried. "You fell off a mountain!"

"And you're one of those twins!" Eggman said to Shadow. "You died a long time ago!"

"I'm not a twin," Shadow said, "and I'm not dead."

"And," Count Eggman said with a sneer, "you're not a volunteer. None of you are members of V.F.D. You're just a bunch of orphan brats."

"In that case," said the woman with hair but no beard, in her deep, deep voice, "there's no reason to worry about that stupid baby any longer."

"That's true," Eggman said, and turned to the white-faced women. "Throw the baby off the mountain!" he ordered.

Tails and Amy cried out in horror, but the two white-faced women merely looked at the covered casserole dish they were holding, and then at one another. Then, slowly, they looked at Count Eggman, but neither of them moved an inch.

"Didn't you hear me?" Eggman asked. "Throw that baby off this mountain!"

"No," said one of the white-faced women, and the two Hedges turned to them in relief.

 _"No?"_ asked Eudora Squalor in an astonished voice. "What do you mean, _no?"_

"We mean no," said the white-faced woman, and her companion nodded. Together they put the covered casserole dish down on the ground in front of them. Tails and Amy were surprised to see that the dish did not move, and assumed that their brother must have been too scared to come out.

"We don't want to participate in your schemes anymore," said the other white-faced woman, and sighed. "For a while, it was fun to fight fire with fire, but we've seen enough flames and smoke to last our whole lives."

"We don't think that it was a coincidence that our home burned to the ground," said the first woman. "We lost a brother in that fire, Eggman."

Count Eggman pointed at the two women with a long, bony finger. "Obey my orders this _instant!"_ he screamed, but his two former accomplices merely shook their heads, turned away from the villain, and began to walk away. Everyone on the square peak watched in silence as the two white-faced women walked past Count Eggman, past Eudora Squalor, past the two sinister villains with eagles on their shoulders, past the two Hedges and Shadow Quagmire, past the hook-handed fox and the former employees of the carnival, and finally past Max and Sally Spats and the rest of the Snow Scouts, until they reached the rocky path and began to walk away from Mount Fraught altogether.

Count Eggman opened his mouth and let out a terrible roar, and jumped up and down on the net. "You can't walk away from me, you pasty-faced women!" he cried. "I'll find you and destroy you myself! In fact, I can do anything myself! I'm an individual practitioner, and I don't need anybody's help to throw this baby off the mountain!" With a nasty chuckle, he picked up the covered casserole dish, staggering slightly, and walked to the edge of the half-frozen waterfall.

 _"No!"_ Tails cried.

 _"Sonic!"_ Amy screamed.

"Say good-bye to your baby brother, Hedges!" Count Eggman said, with a triumphant smile that showed all of his filthy teeth.

"I'm not a baby!" cried a familiar voice from under the villain's long, black automobile, and the two elder Hedges watched with pride and relief as Sonic emerged from behind the tire Tails had punctured, and ran to hug his siblings. Amy had to take his glasses off to wipe the tears from his eyes as he was finally reunited with the young boy who was his brother. "I'm not a baby!" Sonic said again, turning to Eggman in triumph.

"How could this be?" Count Eggman said, but when he removed the cover from the casserole dish, he saw how this could be, because

the object inside, which was about the same size and weight as the youngest Hedge, wasn't a baby either.

"Babganoush!" Sonic cried, which meant something along the lines of, "I concocted an escape plan with the eggplant that turned out to be even handier than I thought," but there was no need for anyone to translate, as the large vegetable slid out of the casserole dish and landed with a _plop!_ at Eggman's feet.

"Nothing is going right for me today!" cried the villain. "I'm beginning to think that washing my face was a complete waste of time!"

"Don't upset yourself, boss," said Rosy, contorting herself in concern. "I'm sure that Sonic will cook us something delicious with the eggplant."

"That's true," the hook-handed fox said. "he's becoming quite a cook. The False Spring Rolls were quite tasty, and the lox was delicious."

"It could have used a little dill, in my opinion," Scourge said, but the three reunited Hedges turned away from this ridiculous conversation to face the Snow Scouts.

"Now do you believe us?" Tails asked Max. "Can't you see that this man is a terrible villain who is trying to do you harm?"

"Don't you remember us?" Amy asked Sally Spats. "Count Eggman had a terrible scheme at Prufrock Prep, and he has a terrible scheme now!"

"Of course I remember you," Sally said. "You're those cakesniffing orphans who caused Vice Principal Router all that trouble. And now you're trying to ruin my very special day! Give me that Springpole, Uncle Max!"

"Now, now, Sally," Max said, but Sally had already grabbed the long pole from Max's hands and was marching across the net toward the source of the Stricken Stream. The man with a

beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard clasped their wicked whips and raised their shiny whistles to their sinister mouths, but the Hedges could see they were waiting to spring their trap until the rest of the scouts stepped forward, so they would be inside the net when the eagles lifted it from the ground.

"I crown myself False Spring Queen!" Sally announced, when she reached the very edge of Mount Fraught. With a nasty laugh of triumph, she elbowed the Hedges aside and drove the Springpole into the half-frozen top of the waterfall. There was a slow, loud shattering sound, and the Hedges looked down the slope and saw that an enormous crack was slowly making its way down the center of the waterfall, toward the pool and the two tributaries of the Stricken Stream. The Hedges gasped in horror. Although it was only the ice that was cracking, it looked as if the mountain were beginning to split in half, and that soon an enormous schism would divide the entire world.

"What are you looking at?" Sally asked scornfully. "Everybody's supposed to be doing a dance in my honor."

"That's right," Count Eggman said, "why doesn't everybody step forward and do a dance in honor of this darling little girl?"

"Sounds good to me," Miles said, leading his fellow employees onto the net. "After all, I have two equally strong feet."

"And we should try to be accommodating," the hook-handed fox said. "Isn't that what you said, Uncle Max?"

"Absolutely," Max agreed, with a puff on his cigar. He looked a bit relieved that all the arguing had ceased, and that the scouts finally had an opportunity to do the same thing they did every year. "Come on, Snow Scouts, let's recite the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge as we dance around the Springpole."

The scouts cheered and followed Max onto the net. "Snow Scouts," the Snow Scouts said, "are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping,

kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered, every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!"

There is nothing wrong, of course, with having a pledge, and putting into words what you might feel is important in your life as a reminder to yourself as you make your way in the world. If you feel, for instance, that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to a world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, "The world is quiet here," as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good. If you feel that well-read people ought to be lit on fire and their fortunes stolen, you might adopt the saying "Fight fire with fire!" as your pledge, whenever you ordered one of your comrades around. But whatever words you might choose to describe your own life, there are two basic guidelines for composing a good pledge. One guideline is that the pledge make good sense, so that if your pledge contains the word "xylophone," for example, you mean that a percussion instrument played with mallets is very important to you, and not that you simply couldn't think of a good word that begins with the letter X. The other guideline is that the pledge be relatively short, so if a group of villains is luring you into a trap with a net and a group of exhausted trained eagles, you'll have more time to escape.

The Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge, sadly, did not follow either of these guidelines. As the Snow Scouts promised to be "xylophone," the man with a beard but no hair cracked his whip in the air, and the eagles sitting on both villains' shoulders began to flap their wings and, digging their claws into the thick pads, lifted the two sinister people high in the air, and when the pledge neared its end, and the Snow Scouts were all taking a big breath to make the snowy sound, the woman with hair but no beard blew her whistle, making a loud shriek the Hedges remembered from running laps as part

of Eggman's scheme at Prufrock Prep. The three siblings stood with Shadow and watched as the rest of the eagles quickly dove to the ground, picked up the net, and, their wings trembling with the effort, lifted everyone who was standing on it into the air, the way you might remove all the dinner dishes from the table by lifting all the corners of the tablecloth. If you were to try such an unusual method of clearing the table, you would likely be sent to your room or chased out of the restaurant, and the results on Mount Fraught were equally disastrous. In moments, all of the Snow Scouts and Eggman's henchfolk were in an aerial heap, struggling together inside the net that the eagles were holding. The only person who escaped recruitment – besides the Hedges and Shadow Quagmire, of course – was Sally Spats, standing next to Count Eggman and his girlfriend.

"What's going on?" Max asked Count Eggman from inside the net. "What have you done?"

"I've triumphed," Count Eggman said, _"again._ A long time ago, I tricked you out of a reptile collection that I needed for my own use." The Hedges looked at one another in astonishment, suddenly realizing when they had met Max before. "And now, I've tricked you out of a collection of children!"

"What's going to happen to us?" asked one of the Snow Scouts fearfully.

"I don't care," said another Snow Scout, who seemed to be afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome already. "Every year we hike up to Mount Fraught and do the same thing. At least this year is a little different!"

"Why are you recruiting me, too?" asked the hook-handed fox, and the Hedges could see one of his hooks frantically sticking out of the net. "I already work for you."

"Don't worry, hooky," Eudora replied mockingly. "It's all for the greater good!"

"Mush!" cried the man with a beard but no hair, cracking his whip in the air. Squawking in fear, the eagles began to drag the net across the sky, away from Mount Fraught.

"You get the sugar bowl from those bratty orphans, Eggman," ordered the woman with hair but no beard, "and we'll all meet up at the last safe place!"

"With these eagles at our disposal," the sinister man said in his hoarse voice, "we can finally catch up to that self-sustaining hot air mobile home and destroy those volunteers!"

The Hedges gasped, and shared an astonished look with Shadow. The villain was surely talking about the device that Jet had built at the Village of Fowl Devotees, in which Manic and Sonia had escaped.

"We'll fight fire with fire!" the woman with hair but no beard cried in triumph, and the eagles carried her away. Count Eggman muttered something to himself and then turned and began creeping toward the Hedges. "I only need one of you to learn where the sugar bowl is," he said, his eyes shining brightly, "and to get my hands on the fortune. But which one should it be?"

"That's a difficult decision," Eudora said. "On one hand, it's been enjoyable having an infant servant. But it would be a lot of fun to smash Amy's glasses and watch her bump into things."

"But Tails can fly with his tails," Sally volunteered, as the Hedges backed toward the cracked waterfall with Shadow right behind them. "You can whip that cakesniffer every time he lands and he will faint of exhaustion. It will be fun to do when your bored!"

"Those are both excellent ideas," Count Eggman said. "I'd forgotten what an adorable little girl you are. Why don't you join us?"

"Join you?" Sally asked.

"Look at my stylish dress," Eudora said to Sally. "If you joined us, I'd buy you all sorts of in outfits."

Sally looked thoughtful, gazing first at the children, and then at the two villains standing next to her and smiling. The three Hedges shared a look of horrified disappointment with Shadow. The siblings remembered how monstrous Sally had been at school, but it had never occurred to them that she would be interested in joining up with even more monstrous people.

"Don't believe them, Sally," Shadow said, and took his dark red notebook out of his pocket. "They'll burn your parents' house down. I have the evidence right here, in my commonplace book."

"What are you going to believe, Sally?" Count Eggman asked. "A silly book, or something an adult tells you?"

"Look at us, you adorable little girl," Eudora said, her yellow, orange, and red dress crackling on the ground. "Do we look like the sort of people who like to burn down houses?"

"Sally!" Tails cried. "Don't listen to them!" "Sally!" Amy cried. "Don't join them!"

"Sally!" Sonic cried, which meant something like, "You're making a monstrous decision!"

"Sally," Count Eggman said, in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Why don't you choose one orphan to live, and push the others off the cliff, and then we'll all go to a nice hotel together."

"You'll be like the daughter we never had," Eudora said, stroking her tiara.

"Or something," added Eggman, who looked like he would prefer having another employee rather than a daughter.

Sally glanced once more at the Hedges, and then smiled up at the two villains. "Do you really think I'm adorable?" she asked.

"I think you're adorable, beautiful, cute, dainty, eye-pleasing, flawless, gorgeous, harmonious, impeccable, jaw-droppingly

adorable, keen, luscious, magnificent, nifty, obviously adorable, photogenic, quite adorable, ravishing, splendid, thin, undeformed, very adorable, well-proportioned, xylophone, yummy, and zestfully adorable," Eudora pledged, "every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!"

"Don't listen to her!" Shadow pleaded. "A person can't be 'xylophone'!"

"I don't care!" Sally said. "I'm going to push these cakesniffer hedgehogs off the mountain, and start an exciting and fashionable new life! And spare that fox freak!"

The Hedges took another step back, and Shadow followed, giving the children a panicked look. Above them they could hear the squawking of the eagles as they took the villains' new recruits farther and farther away. Behind them they could feel the four drafts of the valley below, where the headquarters had been destroyed by people the children's parents had devoted their lives to stopping. Tails reached in his pocket for his ribbon, trying to imagine what he could invent that could get them away from such villainous people, and journeying toward their fellow volunteers at the last safe place. Her fingers brushed against the bread knife, and he wondered if he should remove the weapon from his pocket and use it to threaten the villains with violence, or whether this, too, would make him as villainous as the man who was staring at her now.

"Poor Hedges," Count Eggman said mockingly. "You might as well give up. You're hopelessly outnumbered."

"We're not outnumbered at all," Amy said. "There are four of us, and only three of you."

"I count triple because I'm the False Spring Queen," Sally said, "so you _are_ outnumbered, cakesniffers."

This, of course, was more utter nonsense from the mouth of this cruel girl, but even if it weren't nonsense, it does not always matter

if one is outnumbered or not. When Tails and Amy were hiking toward the Valley of Four Drafts, for instance, they were outnumbered by the swarm of snow gnats, but they managed to find Shadow Quagmire, climb up the Vertical Flame Diversion to the headquarters, and find the message hidden in the refrigerator.

Sonic had been outnumbered by all of the villains on top of Mount Fraught, and had still managed to survive the experience, discover the location of the last safe place, and concoct a few recipes that were as easy as they were delicious. And the members of V.F.D. have always been outnumbered, because the number of greedy and wicked people always seems to be increasing, while more and more libraries go up in smoke, but the volunteers have managed to endure, a word which here means "meet in secret, communicate in code, and gather crucial evidence to foil the schemes of their enemies." It does not always matter whether there are more people on your side of the schism than there are on the opposite side, and as the Hedges stood with Shadowand took one more step back, they knew what was more important.

"Rosebud!'' Sonic cried, which meant "In some situations, the location of a certain object can be much more important than being outnumbered," and it was true. As the villains gasped in astonishment, Tails sat down in the toboggan, grabbing the leather straps. Shadow sat down behind him and put his arms around his waist, and Amy sat down next, and put her arms around Shadow's, blushing, and there was just enough room in back for a young boy, so Sonic sat behind his sister and hung on tight as Tails pushed off from the peak of Mount Fraught and sent the four children hurtling down the slope. It did not matter that they were outnumbered. It only mattered that they could escape from a monstrous end by racing down the last of the slippery slope, just as it only matters for you to escape from a monstrous end by putting down the last of _The_ _Slippery_ _Slope,_ and reading a book in which villains do not roar at children who are trying to escape.

"We'll be right behind you, Hedges!" Count Eggman roared, as the

toboggan raced toward the Valley of Four Drafts, bumping and splashing against the cracked and melting ice.

"He won't be right behind us," Tails said. "My shoes punctured his tire, remember?"

Shadow nodded. "And he'll have to take that path," he said. "A car can't go down a waterfall."

"We'll have a head start," Tails said. "Maybe we can reach the last safe place before he does."

"Overhear!" Sonic cried. "Hotel Denouement!"

"Good work, Sonic!" Tails said proudly, pulling on the leather straps to steer the toboggan away from the large crack. "I knew you'd be a good spy."

"Hotel Denouement," Shadow said. "I think I have that in one of my maps. I'll check my commonplace book when we get to the bottom."

"Max!" Sonic cried.

"That's another thing to write down in our commonplace books," Amy agreed. "That man Max was at Dr. Knuckles' house at the end of our stay. He said he was packing up Knuckles's reptile collection for the herpetological society."

"Do you think he's really a member of V.F.D.?" Tails asked.

"We can't be sure," Shadow said. "We've managed to investigate so many mysteries, and yet there's still so much we don't know." He sighed thoughtfully, and gazed down at the ruins of headquarters rushing toward them. "My siblings – "

But the Hedges never got to hear any more about Shadow's siblings, because at that moment the toboggan, despite Tails' efforts with the leather straps, slipped against a melted section of the waterfall, and the large sled began to spin. The children screamed, and Tails grabbed the straps as hard as she could, only

to have them break in his hands. "The steering mechanism is broken!" she yelled. "Dragging Eudora Squalor up the slope must have weakened the straps!"

"Uh-oh!" Sonic cried, which meant something along the lines of, "That doesn't sound like good news."

"At this velocity," Tails said, using a scientific word for speed, "the toboggan won't stop when we reach the frozen pool. If we don't slow down, we'll fall right into the pit we dug."

Amy was getting dizzy from all the spinning, and closed her eyes behind her glasses. "What can we do?" she asked.

"Drag your shoes against the ice!" Tails cried. "The forks should slow us down!"

Quickly, the two elder Hedges stretched out their legs and dragged the forks of their shoes against the last of the ice on the slope. Shadow followed suit, but Sonic, who of course was not wearing fork-assisted climbing shoes, could do nothing but listen to the scraping and splashing of the forks against the thawing ice of the stream as the toboggan slowed ever so slightly.

"It's not enough!" Amy cried. As the toboggan continued to spin, she caught brief glimpses of the pit they had dug, covered with a thin layer of weakened wood, getting closer and closer as the four children hurtled toward the bottom of the waterfall.

"Bicuspid?" Sonic asked, which meant something like "Should I drag my teeth against the ice, too?"

"It's worth a try," Amy said, but as soon as the youngest Hedge leaned down and dragged his teeth along the thawing waterfall, the Hedges could see at once that it was not really worth a try at all, as the toboggan kept spinning and racing toward the bottom.

"That's not enough, either," Tails said, and focused his inventing mind as hard as he could, remembering how he had stopped the

caravan, when he and his sister were hurtling away from Count Eggman's automobile. There was nothing large enough to use as a drag chute, and the eldest Hedge found herself wishing that Eudora Squalor were on board with them, so she could stop the toboggan with her enormous, flame-imitating dress. She knew there was no blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, _crema di noci,_ tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, or glue on board, or any other sticky substance, for that matter. But then she remembered the small table she had used to drag on the ground, behind the caravan, and she reached into her pocket and knew what she could do.

"Hang on!" Tails cried, but he did not hang on herself. Dropping the broken straps of the toboggan, he grabbed the long bread knife and took it out of his pocket at last. It had only been several days, but it felt like a very long time since he had taken the knife from the caravan, and it seemed that every few minutes he had felt its jagged blade in his pocket as he tried to defeat the villains high above him, without becoming a villain herself. But now, at last, there was something she could do with the knife that might save them all, without hurting anyone. Gritting his teeth, Tails leaned out of the spinning toboggan and thrust the knife as hard as he could into the ice of the slippery slope.

The tip of the blade hit the crack caused by Sally's Springpole, and then the entire knife sank into the slope just as the toboggan reached the bottom. There was a sound the likes of which the Hedges had never heard, like a combination of an enormous window shattering and the deep, booming sound of someone firing a cannon. The knife had widened the crack, and in one tremendous crash, the last of the ice fell to pieces and all of the forks, sunlight, teeth, spring poles, and tobogganing finally took their toll on the waterfall. In one

enormous _whoosh!,_ the waters of the Stricken Stream came rushing down the slope, and in a moment the Hedges were no longer on a frozen pool at the bottom of a strange curve of ice, but simply at the bottom of a rushing waterfall, with gallons and gallons of water pouring down on them. The orphans had just enough time to take a deep breath before the toboggan was forced underwater. The three siblings hung on tight, but the middle Hedge felt a pair of hands slip from her grasp, and when the wooden toboggan bobbed to the surface again, she called out the name of her lost friend.

 _"Shadow!"_ she screamed.

 _"Amy!"_ The Hedges heard the triplet's voice as the toboggan began to float down one of the tributaries. Amy pointed, and through the rush of the waterfall the children could see a glimpse of their friend. He had managed to grab onto a piece of wood from the ruins of headquarters, something that looked a bit like a banister, such as one might need to walk up a narrow staircase leading to an astronomical observatory. The rush of the water was dragging the wood, and Shadow, down the opposite tributary of the Stricken Stream.

 _"Shadow!"_ Amy screamed again.

 _"Amy!"_ Shadow shouted, over the roar of the water. The siblings could see he had removed his commonplace book from his pocket and was desperately waving it at them. _"Wait for me! Wait for me at_

– "

But the Hedges heard no more. The Stricken Stream, in its sudden thaw from the arrival of False Spring, whisked the banister and the toboggan away from one another, down the two separate tributaries. The siblings had one last glimpse of the notebook's dark red cover before Shadow rushed around one twist in the stream, and the Hedges rushed around another, and the triplet was gone from their sight.

 _"Shadow!"_ Amy called, one more time, and tears sprung in her

eyes.

"He's alive," Tails said, and held Amy's shoulder to help her balance on the bobbing toboggan. She could not tell if the eldest Hedge was crying, too, or if his face was just wet from the waterfall. "He's alive, and that's the important thing."

"Intrepid," Sonic said, which meant something like, "Shadow Quagmire was brave and resourceful enough to survive the fire that destroyed his home, and I'm sure he'll survive this, too."

Amy could not bear that her friend was rushing away from her, so soon after first making his acquaintance. "But we're supposed to wait for him," she said, "and we don't know where."

"Maybe he's going to try to reach his siblings before the eagles do," Tails said, "but we don't know where they are."

"Hotel Denouement?" Sonic guessed. "V.F.D.?"

"Amy," Tails said, "you saw some of Shadow's research. Do you know if these two tributaries ever meet up again?"

Amy shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Shadow's the cartographer."

"Godot," Sonic said, which meant "We don't know where to go, and we don't know how to get there."

"We know some things," Amy said. "We know that someone sent a message to J.S."

"Chocolate," Sonic said.

Tails nodded. "And we know that the message said to meet on Thursday at the last safe place."

"Matahari," Sonic said, and Amy smiled, and pulled Sonic toward him so he wouldn't fall off the floating toboggan. he was no longer a baby, but the youngest Hedge was still young enough to sit on his brother's lap.

"Yes," Tails agreed. "Thanks to you, we know that the last safe place is the Hotel Denouement."

"But we don't know where that is," Tails said. "We don't know where to find these volunteers, or if indeed there are any more surviving members of V.F.D. We can't even be certain what V.F.D. stands for, or if our parents are truly dead. Shadow was right. We've managed to investigate so many mysteries, and yet there's still so much we don't know."

His siblings nodded sadly, and if I had been there at that moment, instead of arriving far too late to see the Hedges, I would have nodded, too. Even for an author like myself, who has dedicated his entire life to investigating the mysteries that surround the Hedge case, there is still much I have been unable to discover. I do not know, for instance, what happened to the two white-faced women who decided to quit Eggman's troupe and walk away, all by themselves, down the Mortmain Mountains. There are many who say that they still paint their faces white, and can be seen singing sad songs in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city.

There are some who say that they live together in the hinterlands, attempting to grow rhubarb in the dry and barren ground. And there are those who say that they did not survive the trip down from Mount Fraught, and that their bones can be found in one of the many caves in the odd, square peaks. But although I have sat through song after dreary song, and tasted some of the worst rhubarb in my life, and brought bone after bone to a skeleton expert until she told me that I was making her so miserable that I should never return, I have not been able to discover what truly happened to the two women. I do not know where the remains of the caravan are, as I have told you, and as I reach the end of the rhyming dictionary, and read the short list of words that rhyme with "zucchini," I am beginning to think I should stop my search for the destroyed vehicle and give up that particular part of my research.

And I have not tracked down the refrigerator in which the Hedges found the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, despite stories that it

is also in one of the Mortmain Mountain caves, or performing in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city.

But even though there is much I do not know, there are a few mysteries that I have solved for certain, and one thing I am sure about is where the Hedge orphans went next, as the ashen waters of the Stricken Stream hurried their toboggan out of the Mortmain Mountains, just as the sugar bowl was hurried along, after the volunteer tossed it into the stream to save it from the fire. But although I know exactly where the Hedges went, and can even trace their path on a map drawn by one of the most promising young cartographers of our time, I am not the writer who can describe it best. The writer who can most accurately and elegantly describe the path of the three orphans was an associate of mine who, like the man who wrote "The Road Less Traveled," is now dead. Before he died, however, he was widely regarded as a very good poet, although some people think his writings about religion were a little too mean-spirited. His name was Algernon Charles Swinburne, and the last quatrain of the eleventh stanza of his poem "The Garden of Proserpine" perfectly describes what the children found as this chapter in their story drew to an end, and the next one began. The first half of the quatrain reads, _That_ _no_ _life lives_ _forever;_

 _That dead men rise up never;_

and indeed, the grown men in the Hedges' lives who were dead, such as Chocolate Snicket, or the children's father, were never going to rise up. And the second half of the quatrain reads,

 _That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea._

This part is a bit trickier, because some poems are a bit like secret codes, in that you must study them carefully in order to discover their meaning. A poet such as Shadow Quagmire's sister, Sonia, of course, would know at once what those two lines mean, but it took me quite some time before I decoded them. Eventually, however, it became clear that "the weariest river" refers to the

Stricken Stream, which indeed seemed weary from carrying away all of the ashes from the destruction of V.F.D. headquarters, and that "winds somewhere safe to sea" refers to the last safe place where all the volunteers, including Shadow Quagmire, could gather. As Sonic said, he and his siblings did not know where to go, and they didn't know how to get there, but the Hedge orphans were winding there anyway, and that is one thing I know for certain.

To My Kind Editor,

I apologize for the watery quality of this letter but I'm afraid the ink I am using has become diluted, a word which here means "soaked with salt water from the ocean and from the author's own tears. It is difficult to conduct my investigation on the damaged submarine where the Hedges lived during the episode of their lives, and I can only hope that the rest of this letter will not wash away.

The Grim G

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	12. The Grim Grotto

" **THE** **GRIM** **GROTTO"**

 **A Series of Unfortunate**

 **Events**

 **Book 11**

 **by Lemony Snicket**

 *** A Series Of Unfortunate** **Events** ***** **BOOK** **the** **Eleventh**

 **THE** **GRIM** **GROTTO** **by** **LEMONY** **SNICKET**

 **HarperCollinsPublishers**

 _For Cream–_

 _Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down_

 _ **CHAPTER**_ **One**

 _After_ a great deal of time examining oceans, investigating rainstorms, and staring very hard at several drinking fountains, the scientists of the world developed a theory regarding how water is distributed around our planet, which they have named "the water cycle." The water cycle consists of three key phenomena – evaporation, precipitation, and collection – and all of them are equally boring.

Of course, it is boring to read about boring things, but it is better to read something that makes you yawn with boredom than something that will make you weep uncontrollably, pound your fists against the floor, and leave tearstains all over your pillowcase, sheets, and boomerang collection. Like the water cycle, the tale of the Hedge children consists of three key phenomena, but rather than read their sorry tale it would be best if you read something about the water cycle instead.

Tails, the eldest phenomenon, was nearly fifteen years old and very

nearly the best inventor the world had ever seen. As far as I can tell he was certainly the best inventor who had ever found himself trapped in the gray waters of the Stricken Stream, clinging desperately to a toboggan as he was carried away from the Valley of Four Drafts, and if I were you I would prefer to focus on the boring phenomenon of evaporation, which refers to the process of water turning into vapor and eventually forming clouds, rather than think about the turmoil that awaited her at the bottom of the Mortmain Mountains.

Amy was the second eldest of the Hedge siblings, but it would be better for your health if you concentrated on the boring phenomenon of precipitation, which refers to vapor turning back into water and falling as rain, rather than spending even one moment thinking about the phenomenon of Amy's excellent skills as a researcher, and the amount of trouble and woe these skills would bring him once she and her siblings met up with Count Eggman, the notorious villain who had been after the children ever since their parents had perished in a terrible fire.

And even Sonic Hedge, who had recently passed out of babyhood, is a phenomenon all to himself, not only for his very sharp teeth, which had helped the Hedges in a number of unpleasant circumstances and very fast dexterity, a word which here means 'a fast runner' but also for his newfound skills as a cook, which had fed the Hedges in a number of unpleasant circumstances. Although the phenomenon of collection, which describes the gathering of fallen rain into one place so it can evaporate once more and begin the entire tedious process all over again, is probably the most boring phenomenon in the water cycle, it would be far better for you to get up and go right to your nearest library and spend several boring days reading every single boring fact you can find about collection, because the phenomenon of what happens to Sonic Hedge over the course of these pages is the most dreadful phenomenon I can think of, and I can think of a great many. The water cycle may be a series of boring phenomena, but the story of the Hedges is something else entirely, and this is an excellent opportunity to read something boring instead of learning what became of

the Hedges as the rushing waters of the Stricken Stream carried them away from the mountains.

"What will become of us?" Tails asked, raising his voice to be heard over the rushing water. "I don't think I can invent anything that can stop this toboggan."

"I don't think you should try," Amy called back to her brother. "The arrival of False Spring has thawed out the stream, but the waters are still very cold. If one of us fell into the stream, I'm not sure how long we could survive."

"Shadow," Sonic whimpered. The youngest Hedge often talked in a way that could be difficult to understand, but lately his speech had been developing almost as quickly as his cooking skills, and his siblings knew that Sonic was referring to Shadow Quagmire, with whom the Hedges had recently become friends. Shadow had helped Tails and Amy reach the top of Mount Fraught in order to find the V.F.D. headquarters and rescue Sonic from Count Eggman's clutches, but another tributary of the Stricken Stream had carried him off in the opposite direction, and the cartographer – a word which here means "someone who is very good with maps, and of whom Amy Hedge was particularly fond" – didn't even have a toboggan to keep him out of the chilly water.

"I'm sure Shadow has gotten out of the water," Tails said quickly, although of course he was sure of no such thing, but was saying it for his sisters benefit. "I only wish we knew where he was going. He told us to meet him somewhere, but the waterfall interrupted him."

The toboggan bobbed in the water as Amy reached into his pocket and drew out a dark blue notebook. The notebook had been a gift from Shadow, and Amy was using it as a commonplace book, a phrase which here means "notebook in which he wrote any interesting or useful information." "We decoded that message telling us about an important

V.F.D. gathering on Thursday," she said, "and thanks to Sonic, we know

that the meeting is at the Hotel Denouement. Maybe that's where Shadow wants to meet us – at the last safe place."

"But we don't know where it is," Tails pointed out. "How can we meet someone in an unknown location?"

The three Hedges sighed, and for a few moments the siblings sat quietly on the toboggan and listened to the gurgling of the stream. There are some people who like to watch a stream for hours, staring at the glittering water and thinking about the mysteries of the world. But the waters of the Stricken Stream were too dirty to glitter, and every mystery the children tried to solve seemed to reveal even more mysteries, and even those mysteries contained mysteries, so when they pondered these mysteries they felt more overwhelmed than thoughtful. They knew that V.F.D. was a secret organization, but they couldn't seem to find out much about what the organization did, or why it should concern the Hedges. They knew that Count Eggman was very eager to get his filthy hands on a certain sugar bowl, but they had no idea why the sugar bowl was so important, or where in the world it was. They knew that there were people in the world who could help them, but so many of these people – guardians, friends, bankers – had proven to be of no help at all, or had vanished from their lives just when the Hedges needed them most. And they knew there were people in the world who would not help them – villainous people, and their number seemed to be growing as their treachery and wickedness trickled all over the earth, like a dreadful water cycle of woe and despair. But right now the biggest mystery seemed to be what to do next, and as the Hedges huddled together on the floating toboggan they could not think of a thing.

"If we stay on the toboggan," Tails said finally, "where do you think we'll go?"

"Down the mountains," Amy said. "Water runs downhill. The Stricken Stream probably leads out of the Mortmain Mountains into the

hinterlands, and then eventually it'll lead to some larger body of water – a lake, or an ocean. From there the water will evaporate into clouds, fall as rain and snow, and so on."

"Tedium," Sonic said.

"The water cycle is quite dull," Amy agreed, "but it might be the easiest way to get us away from Count Eggman."

"That's true," Tails said. "Eggman said he'd be right behind us."

"Esmelita," Sonic said, which meant something like, "Along with Eudora Squalor and Sally Spats," and the Hedges frowned as they thought of Eggman's girlfriend, who participated in Eggman's schemes because she believed that treachery and deception were very stylish, or " _in_ ," and the former classmate of the Hedges' who had recently joined Eggman for selfish reasons of her own.

"So we're just going to sit on this toboggan," Tails asked, "and see where it takes us?"

"It's not much of a plan," Amy admitted, "but I can't think of a better one."

"Passive," Sonic said, and his siblings nodded glumly. "Passive" is an unusual word to hear from a baby, and in fact it is an unusual word to hear from a Hedge or anyone else who leads an interesting life. It merely means "accepting what is happening without doing anything about it," and certainly everyone has passive moments from time to time. Perhaps you have experienced a passive moment at the shoe store, when you sat in a chair as the shoe salesperson forced your feet into a series of ugly and uncomfortable shoes, when all the while you wanted a bright red pair with strange buckles that nobody on earth was going to buy for you. The Hedges had experienced a passive moment at Briny Beach, where they had learned the terrible news about their parents, and had been numbly led by Mr. Silver Poetoward their new

unfortunate lives. I recently experienced a passive moment myself, sitting in a chair as a shoe salesperson forced my feet into a series of ugly and uncomfortable positions, when all the while I wanted a bright red pair of shoes with strange buckles that nobody on earth was going to buy for me. But a passive moment in the middle of a rushing stream, when villainous people are hot on your trail, is a difficult moment to accept, which is why the Hedges fidgeted on the toboggan as the Stricken Stream carried them further and further downhill, just as I fidgeted as I tried to plan my escape from that sinister shoe emporium. Tails fidgeted. and thought of V.F.D. hoping that he could still learn more about the organization even though their headquarters had been destroyed Amy fidgeted and thought of Shadow, hoping he had managed to escape from the cold water and get himself to safety. And Sonic fidgeted and thought of the fish in the Stricken Stream, who would occasionally stick their heads out of the ashen water and cough. he was wondering if the ashes, which were left in the water by a recent fire in the mountains and made it difficult for the fish to breathe, would mean the fish wouldn't taste very good, even if you used a recipe with plenty of butter and lemon.

The Hedges were so busy fidgeting and thinking that when the toboggan rounded one of the odd, square sides of the mountain peaks, it was a moment before they noticed the view spread below them. Only when a few scraps of newspaper blew in front of their faces did the Hedges look down and gasp at what they saw.

"What is it?" Tails said.

"I don't know," Amy said. "It's hard to tell from so high up." "Subjavik," Sonic said, and she spoke the truth. From this side of the

Mortmain Mountains, the Hedges had expected to see the hinterlands, a vast expanse of flat landscape where they had spent quite some time. Instead, it looked like the world had turned into a dark, dark sea. As far as the eye could see there were swirls of gray and black,

moving like strange eels in shadowy water. Every so often one of the swirls would release a small, fragile object that would float up toward the Hedges like a feather. Some of these objects were scraps of newspaper. Others appeared to be tiny bits of cloth. And some of them were so dark that they were utterly unrecognizable, a phrase Sonic preferred to express as "subjavik."

Amy squinted down through her glasses and then turned to her brothers with a look of despair. "I know what it is," she said quietly. "It's the ruins of a fire."

The Hedges looked down again and saw that Amy was right. From such a height, it had taken the children a moment to realize that a great fire had raged through the hinterlands, leaving only ashen scraps behind.

"Of course," Tails said. "It's strange we didn't recognize it before. But who would set fire to the hinterlands?"

"We did," Amy said.

"Caligari," Sonic said, reminding Tails of a terrible carnival in which the Hedges had spent some time in disguise. Sadly, as part of their disguise it had been necessary to assist Count Eggman in burning down the carnival, and now they could see the fruits of their labors, a phrase which here means "the results of the terrible thing they did, even though they did not mean to do it at all."

"The fire isn't our fault," Tails said. "Not entirely. We had to help Eggman, otherwise he would have discovered our disguises."

"He discovered our disguises anyway," Amy pointed out.

"Noblaym," Sonic said, which meant something like, "But it's still not our fault."

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "We didn't think up the plot – Eggman did." "We didn't stop him, either," Amy pointed out. "And plenty of people

think we're entirely responsible. These scraps of newspaper are probably from _The Daily Punctilio_ , which has blamed us for all sorts of terrible crimes."

"You're right," Tails said with a sigh, although I have since discovered that Amy was wrong, and that the scraps of paper blowing past the Hedges were from another publication that would have been of enormous help had they stopped to collect the pieces. "Maybe we should be passive for a while. Being active hasn't helped us much."

"In any case," Amy said, "we should stay on the toboggan. Fire can't hurt us if we're floating on a stream."

"It doesn't seem like we have a choice," Tails said. "Look."

The Hedges looked, and saw that the toboggan was approaching a sort of intersection, where another tributary of the Stricken Stream was meeting up with theirs. The stream was now much wider, and the water even rougher, so the Hedges had to hang on tight in order not to be thrown into the deepening waters.

"We must be approaching a larger body of water," Amy said. "We're further along in the water cycle than I thought. Do you think that's the tributary that carried away Shadow?" she said, craning her neck to look for her missing friend.

"Selphawa!" Sonic cried, which meant "We can't think about Shadow now – we have to think about ourselves," and the youngest Hedge was right. With a great whoosh! the stream turned another square corner, and within moments the waters of the stream were churning so violently that it felt as if the Hedges were riding a wild horse rather than a broken toboggan.

"Can you steer the toboggan toward the shore?" Amy yelled over the sound of the stream.

"No!" Tails cried. "The steering mechanism broke when we rode down the waterfall, and the stream is too wide to paddle there!" Tails found a ribbon in his pocket and paused to tie up his hair in order to think better. he gazed down at the toboggan and tried to think of various mechanical blueprints he had read in his childhood, when his parents were alive and supportive of his interests in mechanical engineering. "The runners of the toboggan," he said, and then repeated it in a shout to be heard over the water. "The runners! They help the toboggan maneuver on the snow, but maybe they can help us steer on the water!"

"Where are the runners?" Amy asked, looking around.

"On the bottom of the toboggan!" Tails cried.

"Imposiyakto?" Sonic asked, which meant something like, "How can we get to the bottom of the toboggan?"

"I don't know," Tails said, and frantically checked his pockets for any inventing materials. he had been carrying a long bread knife, but now it was gone – probably carried away by the stream, along with Shadow, when he had used it last. he looked straight ahead, at the frothy rush of water threatening to engulf them. he gazed at the distant shores of the stream, which grew more and more distant as the stream continued to widen. And he looked at his siblings, who were waiting for his inventing skills to save them. His siblings looked back, and all three Hedges looked at one another for a moment, blinking dark water out of their eyes, as they tried to think of something to do.

Just at that moment, however, one more eye arrived, also blinking dark water as it rose out of the stream, right in front of the Hedges. At first it seemed to be the eye of some terrible sea creature, found only in books of mythology and in the swimming pools of certain resorts. But as the toboggan took them closer, the children could see that the eye was made of metal, perched on top of a long metal pole that curved at the top so the eye could get a better look at them. It is very unusual to

see a metal eye rising up out of the rushing waters of a stream, and yet this eye was something the Hedges had seen many times, since their first encounter with an eye tattoo on Count Eggman's left ankle. The eye was an insignia, and when you looked at it in a certain way it also looked like three mysterious letters.

"V.F.D.!" Sonic cried, as the toboggan drew even closer. "What is it?" Amy asked.

"It's a periscope!" Tails said. "Submarines use them to look at things above the water!"

"Does that mean," Amy cried, "that there's a submarine beneath us?"

Tails did not have to answer, because the eye rose further out of the water, and the orphans could see that the pole was attached to a large, flat piece of metal, most of which was under the water. The toboggan drew closer until the periscope was in reach, and then stopped, the way a raft will stop when it hits a large rock.

"Look!" Tails cried as the stream rushed around them. She pointed to a hatch just at the bottom of the periscope. "Let's knock – maybe they can hear us!"

"But we have no idea who's inside," Amy said.

"Taykashans!" Sonic shrieked, which meant "It's our only chance to travel safely through these waters," and he leaned down to the hatch and hit them with his feet, that became a small blue blur. His siblings joined her, preferring to use their fists to pound on the metal hatch.

"Hello!" Tails cried.

"Hello!" Amy yelled. "Shalom!" Sonic shrieked.

Over the sound of the rushing stream, the Hedges heard a very

dim sound coming from behind the hatch. The sound was a human voice, very deep and echoey as if it were coming from the bottom of a well. "Friend or foe?" it said.

The Hedges looked at one another. They knew, as I'm sure you know, that "friend or foe" is a traditional greeting directed at visitors who approach an important place, such as a royal palace or a fiercely guarded shoe store, and must identify themselves as either a friend or a foe of the people inside. But the siblings did not know if they were friends or foes for the simple reason that they had no idea who was talking.

"What should we say?" Tails asked, lowering his voice. "The eye might mean that it's Count Eggman's submarine, in which case we're foes."

"The eye might mean that it's V.F.D.'s submarine," Amy said, "in which case we're friends."

"Obvio!" Sonic said, which meant "There's only one answer that will get us into the submarine," and he called down to the hatch, "Friend!"

There was a pause, and the echoey voice spoke again. "Password, please," it said.

The Hedges looked at one another again. A password, of course, is a certain word or phrase that one utters in order to receive information or enter a secret place, and the siblings of course had no idea what they should say in order to enter a submarine. For a moment none of the children said anything, merely tried to think, although they wished it were quieter so they could think without the distractions of the sounds of the rushing of water and the coughing of fish. They wished that instead of being stranded on a toboggan in the middle of the Stricken Stream, they were in some quiet room, such as the Hedge library, where they could sit in silence and read up on what the password might be. But as the three siblings thought of one library, one sibling remembered another: the ruined V.F.D. library, up in the Valley of Four Drafts where

the headquarters had once stood. Tails thought of an iron archway, one of the few remnants of the library, and the motto that was etched into it. The eldest Hedge looked at her siblings and then leaned down to the hatch and repeated the mysterious words he had seen, and that he hoped would bring him and his siblings to safety.

"The world is quiet here," he said.

There was a pause, and with a loud, metallic creak, the hatch opened, and the siblings peered into a dark hole, which had a ladder running along the side so they could climb down. They shivered, and not just from the icy chill of the mountain winds and the rushing dark waters of the Stricken Stream. They shivered because they did not know where they were going, or who they might meet if they climbed down into the hole. Instead of entering, the Hedges wanted to call something else down the hatch – the same words that had been called up to them. "Friend or foe?" they wanted to say. "Friend or foe?" Would it be safer to enter the submarine, or safer to risk their lives outside, in the rushing waters of the Stricken Stream?

"Enter, Hedges," the voice said, and whether it belonged to friend or foe, the Hedges decided to climb inside.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ **Two**

" _Right_ down here!" the echoey voice said, as the Hedge orphans began their journey down the ladder. "Aye! Mind the ladder! Close the hatch behind you! Don't rush! No – take your time! Don't fall! Mind your step! Aye! Don't trip! Don't make noise! Don't scare me! Don't look down! No – look where you're going! Tails fly down! No – don't fly down! Sonic run down! No – Don't fly down! Don't bring any flammable liquids with you! Watch your feet! Aye! No – watch your back! No – watch your mouth! No – Watch your step! No – watch yourselves! Aye!"

"Aye?" Sonic whispered to his siblings.

"'Aye,'" Amy explained quietly, "is another word for 'yes.'"

"Aye!" the voice said again. "Keep your eyes open! Look out below! Look out above! Look out for spies! Look out for one another! Look out! Aye! Be very careful! Be very aware! Be very much! Take a break! No – keep going! Stay awake! Calm down! Cheer up! Keep climbing! Keep your shirt on! Aye!"

As desperate as their situation was, the Hedges almost found themselves giggling. The voice was shouting out so many instructions, and so few of them made sense, that it would have been impossible for the children to follow them, and the voice was quite cheerful and a bit scattered, as if whoever was talking did not really care if their instructions were followed and had probably forgotten them already. "Hold on to the railing!" the voice continued, as the Hedges spotted a light at the end of the passageway. "Aye! No – hold on to yourselves! No

– hold on to your hats! No – hold on to your hands! No – hold on! Wait a minute! Wait a second! Stop waiting! Stop war! Stop injustice! Stop

bothering me! Aye!"

Sonic had been the first to enter the passageway, and so he was the first to reach the bottom and lower herself carefully into a small, dim room with a very low ceiling. Standing in the center of the room was an enormous bee dressed in a shiny suit made of some sort of

slippery-looking material with equally slippery-looking boots on his feet. On the front of the suit was a portrait of a man with a beard, although the bee himself had no beard, merely a very long mustache curled up at both ends like a pair of parentheses. "One of you is a baby!" he cried, as Amy and Tails lowered themselves next to their brother. "Aye! No – both of you are babies! No – there's three of you! No – none of you are babies! Well, one of you sort of is a baby! Welcome! Aye! Hello! Good afternoon! Howdy! Shake my hand! Aye!"

The Hedges hurriedly shook the man's hand, which was covered in a glove made of the same slippery material. "My name is Miles Tails –" Tails started to say.

"Hedge!" the man interrupted. "I know! I'm not stupid! Aye! And you're Amy and Sonic! You're the Hedges! The three Hedge children! Aye! The ones The Daily Punctilio blames for every crime they can think of but you're really innocent but nevertheless in a big heap of trouble! Of course! Nice to meet you! In person! So to speak! Let's go!

Follow me! Aye!"

The man whirled around and stomped out of the room, leaving the bewildered Hedges little else to do but follow him down a corridor. The corridor was covered in metal pipes that ran along the walls, floor, and ceiling, so that the Hedges sometimes had to duck, or step very high, in order to make their way. Occasionally drops of water would drip from one of the pipes and land on their heads, but they were already so damp from the Stricken Stream that they scarcely noticed. Besides, they were far too busy trying to follow what the man was saying to think of anything else.

"Let's see! I'll put you to work right away! Aye! No – first I'll give you a tour! No – I'll give you lunch! No – I'll introduce you to my crew! No – I'll let you rest! No – I'd better get you into uniforms! Aye! It's important that everyone aboard wear a waterproof uniform in case the submarine collapses and we find ourselves underwater! Of course, in that case we'll need diving helmets! Except Sonic because he can't wear one! I guess she'll drown! No – she can curl up inside a diving helmet! Aye! The helmets have a tiny door on the neck just for such a purpose! Aye! I've seen it done! I've seen so many things in my time!"

"Excuse me," Tails said, "but could you tell us who you are?"

The man whirled around to face the children and held his hands up over his head. "What?" he roared. "You don't know who I am? I've never been so insulted in my life! No – I have. Many times, in fact. Aye! I remember when Count Eggman turned to me and said, in that horrible voice of his – No, never mind. I'll tell you. I'm Captain Charmy Widdershins. That's spelled

W-I-D-D-E-R-S-H-I-N-S. Backward it's S-N-I-H-S-R – well, never mind. Nobody spells it backward! Except people who have no respect for the alphabet! And they're not here! Are they?"

"No," Amy said. "We have a great deal of respect for the alphabet."

"I should say so!" the captain cried. "Amy Hedge disrespect the alphabet? Why, it's unthinkable! Aye! It's illegal! It's impossible! It's not true! How dare you say so! No – you didn't say so! I apologize! One thousand pardons! Aye!"

"Is this your submarine, Captain Charmy Widdershins? Tails asked.

"What?" the captain roared. "You don't know whose submarine it is? A renowned inventor like yourself and you haven't the faintest sense of basic submarine history? Of course this is my submarine! It's been my submarine for years! Aye! Have you never heard of Captain Charmy Widdershins and the _Queequeg_? Have you never heard of the Submarine Q and Its Crew of Two? That's a little nickname I made up myself! With a little

help! Aye! I would think Sticks would have told you about the _Queequeg_! After all, I patrolled Lake Lachrymose for years! Poor Sticks! There's not a day I don't think of her! Aye! Except some days when it slips my mind!"

"Nottooti?" Sonic asked.

"I was told it would take me some time to understand everything you said," the captain said, looking down at Sonic. "I'm not sure I'll find the time to learn another foreign language! Aye! Perhaps I could enroll in some night classes!"

"What my brother means," Tails said quickly, "is that he's curious how you know so much about us."

"How does anyone know anything about anything?" the captain replied. "I read it, of course! Aye! I've read every Volunteer Factual Dispatch I've received! Although lately I haven't received any! Aye! That's why I'm glad you happened along! Aye! I thought I might faint when I peered through the periscope and saw your damp little faces staring back at me! Aye! I was sure it was you, but I didn't hesitate to ask you the password! Aye! I never hesitate! Aye! That's my personal Philosophy!"

The captain stopped in the middle of the hallway, and pointed to a brass rectangle that was attached to a wall. It was a plaque, a word which here means "metal rectangle with words carved on it, usually to indicate that something important has happened on the spot where the rectangle is attached." This plaque had a large V.F.D. eye carved into the top, watching over the words THE CAPTAIN'S PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY carved in enormous letters, but the Hedges had to lean in close to see what was printed beneath it.

"'He who hesitates is lost'!" the captain cried, pointing at each word with a thick, gloved finger.

"'Or she,'" Tails added, pointing to a pair of words that someone had

added in scratchy handwriting.

"My stepdaughter added that," Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "And she's right! 'Or she'! One day I was walking down this very hallway and I realized that anyone can be lost if they hesitate! A giant octopus could be chasing you, and if you decided to pause for a moment and tie your shoes, what would happen? All would be lost, that's what would happen! Aye! That's why it's my personal Philosophy! I never hesitate! Never!

Aye! Well, sometimes I do! But I try not to! Because He or she who hesitates is lost! Let's go!"

Without hesitating a moment longer at the plaque, Captain Charmy Widdershins whirled around and led the children further down the corridor, which echoed with the odd sound of his waterproof boots each time he took a step. The children were a bit dizzy from the captain's chatter, and they were thinking about his personal Philosophy and whether or not it ought to be their personal Philosophies as well. Having a personal Philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all. "He or she who hesitates is lost" sounded like a reasonable Philosophy at first glance, but the Hedges could think of situations in which hesitating might be the best thing to do. Tails was glad he'd hesitated when he and his siblings were living with Aunt Sticks, otherwise he might never have realized the importance of the peppermints he found in his pocket. Amy was glad she'd hesitated at Heimlich Hospital, otherwise she might never have thought of a way to disguise Sonic and herself as medical professionals so they could rescue Tails from having unnecessary surgery. And Sonic was glad he'd hesitated outside Count Eggman's tent on Mount Fraught, otherwise he might never have overheard the name of the last safe place, which the Hedges still hoped to reach. But despite all these incidents in which hesitation had been very helpful, the children did not wish to adopt "He or she who does not hesitate is lost" as their personal Philosophy, because a giant octopus might come along at any moment, particularly

when the Hedges were on board a submarine, and the siblings would be very foolish to hesitate if the octopus were coming after them.

Perhaps, the Hedges thought, the wisest personal Philosophy concerning hesitation would be "Sometimes he or she should hesitate and sometimes he or she should not hesitate," but this seemed far too long and vague to be much use on a plaque.

"Maybe if I hadn't hesitated," the captain continued, "the _Queequeg_ would have been repaired by now! Aye! The Submarine Q and Its Crew of Two is not in the best of shape, I'm afraid! Aye! We've been attacked by villains and leeches, by sharks and realtors, by pirates and girlfriends, by torpedoes and angry salmon! Aye!" He stopped at a thick metal door, turned to the Hedges, and signed. "Everything from the radar mechanisms to my alarm clock is malfunctioning! Aye! That's why I'm glad you're here, Tails Hedge! We're desperate for someone with mechanical smarts!"

"I'll see what I can do," Tails said.

"Well, take a look!" Captain Charmy Widdershins cried, and swung open the door. The Hedges followed him into an enormous, cavernous room that echoed when the captain spoke. There were pipes on the ceiling, pipes on the floor, and pipes sticking out of the walls at all angles.

Between the pipes was a bewildering array of panels with knobs, gears, and tiny screens, as well as tiny signs saying things like, DANGER!, WARNING!, and HE OR SHE WHO HESITATES IS LOST! Here and there

were a few green lights, and at the far end was an enormous wooden table piled with books, maps, and dirty dishes, which stood beneath an enormous porthole, a word which here means "round window through which the Hedges could see the filthy waters of the Stricken Stream."

"This is the belly of the beast!" the captain said. "Aye! It's the center of all operations aboard the _Queequeg_! This is where we control the submarine, eat our meals, research our missions, and play board games when we're tired of working!" He strode over to one panel and ducked

his head beneath it. "Fiona!" he called. "Come out of there!"

There was a faint rattling sound, and then the children saw something race out from under the panel and halfway across the floor. In the dim green light it took a moment to see it was a vixen a bit older than Tails, who was lying faceup on a small wheeled platform. She was wearing a suit just like Captain Widdershin's, with the same portrait of the bearded man on the front, and had a flashlight in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other. Smiling, she handed the pliers to her stepfather, who helped her up from the platform as she put on a pair of eyeglasses with triangular frames.

"Hedges," the captain said, "this is Fiona, my stepdaughter. Fiona, this is Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge."

"Charmed," she said, extending a gloved hand first to Tails, who was blushing, then to Amy, and finally to Sonic, who gave Fiona a big toothy smile. "I'm sorry I wasn't upstairs to meet you. I've been trying to repair this telegram device, but electrical repairwork is not my specialty."

"Aye!" the captain said. "For quite some time we've stopped receiving telegrams, but Fiona can't seem to make heads or tails of the device!

Tails, get to work!"

"You'll have to forgive the way my stepfather speaks," Fiona said, putting an arm around him. "It can take some getting used to."

"We don't have time to get used to anything!" Captain Charmy Widdershins cried. "This is no time to be passive! He who hesitates is lost!"

"Or she," Fiona corrected quietly. "Come on, Tails, I'll get you a uniform. If you're wondering whose portrait is one the front, it's Herman Melville."

"He's one of my favorite authors," Amy said. "I really enjoy the way he dramatizes the plight of overlooked people, such as poor sailors or exploited youngsters, through his strange, often experimental

Philosophical prose."

"I should have known you liked him," Fiona replied. "When Sticks's house fell into the lake, my stepfather and I managed to save some of her library before it became too soaked. I read some of your decoding notes, Amy. You're a very perceptive researcher."

"It's very kind of you to say so," Amy said.

"Aye!" the captain cried. "A perceptive researcher is just what we need!" He stomped over to the table and lifted a pile of papers. "A certain taxi driver managed to smuggle these charts to me," he said, "but I can't make head or tail of them! They're confusing! They're confounding!

They're conversational! No – that's not what I mean!"

"I think you mean convoluted," Amy said, peering at the charts. "'Conversational' means 'having to do with conversations,' but 'convoluted' means 'complicated.' What kind of charts are they?"

"Tidal charts!" the captain cried. "We have to figure out the exact course of the predominant tides at the point where the Stricken Stream meets the sea! Amy, I want you to find a uniform and then get to work immediately! Aye!"

"Aye!" Amy said, trying to get into the spirit of the _Queequeg_. "Aye!" the captain answered in a happy roar.

"I?" Sonic asked.

"Aye!" the captain said. "I haven't forgotten about you, Sonic! I'd never forget Sonic! Never in a million years! Not that I will live that long! Particularly because I don't exercise very much! But I don't like exercising, so it's worth it! Why, I remember when they wouldn't let me go mountain climbing because I hadn't trained properly, and –"

"Perhaps you should tell Sonic what you have in mind for him to do," Fiona said gently.

"Of course!" the captain roared. "Naturally! Our other crewman has been in charge of cooking, but all he does is make these terrible damp casseroles! I'm tired of them! I'm hoping your cooking skills might improve our meal situation!"

"Sous," Sonic said modestly, which meant something like, "I haven't been cooking for very long," and his siblings were quick to translate.

"Well, we're in a hurry!" the captain replied, walking over to a far door marked KITCHEN. "We can't wait for Sonic to become an expert chef before getting to work! He or she who hesitates is lost!" He opened the door and called inside. "Cookie! Get out here and meet the Hedges!"

The children heard some quiet, uneven footsteps, as if the cook had something wrong with one leg, and then a chameleon limped through the door, wearing the same uniform as the captain and a wide smile on his face.

"Hedges!" he said. "I always believed I would see you again someday!"

The three siblings looked at the man and then at one another in stupefaction, a word which here means "amazement at seeing a chameleon for the first time since their stay at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, when his kindness toward them had been one of the few positive aspects of that otherwise miserable chapter in their lives." "Espio!" Tails cried. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"He's the second of our crew of two!" the captain cried. "Aye! The original second in the crew of two was Fiona's mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago."

"I'm not so sure it was an accident," Fiona said.

"Then we had Jacques! Aye! But you know him as Chocolate! But I knew him as Jacques!" the captain continued. "Aye, and then what's-his-name, Jacques's brother, I think it was Lem-something, and then a dreadful woman who

turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Espio! Although I like to call him Cookie! I don't know why!"

"I was tired of working in the lumber industry," Espio said. "I was sure I could find a better job, and look at me now – cook on a dilapidated submarine. Life keeps on getting better and better."

"You always were an optimist," Amy said.

"We don't need an optimist!" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "We need a cook! Get to work, Hedges! All of you! Aye! We have no time to waste! He who hesitates is lost!"

"Or she," Fiona reminded her stepfather. "And do we really have to start right this minute? I'm sure the Hedges are exhausted from their journey. We could spend a nice quiet evening playing board games –"

"Board games?" the captain said in astonishment. "Amusements? Entertainments? We don't have time for such things! Aye! Today's Saturday, which means we only have five days left! Thursday is the

V.F.D. gathering, and I don't want anyone at the Hotel Denouement to say that the _Queequeg_ hasn't performed its mission!"

"Mission?" Sonic asked.

"Aye!" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "We mustn't hesitate! We must act! We must hurry! We must move! We must search! We must investigate! We must hunt! We must pursue! We must stop occasionally for a brief snack! We must find that sugar bowl before Count Eggman does! Aye!"

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Three**

 _The_ expression "Shiver me timbers!" comes from the society of pirates, who enjoy using interesting expressions almost as much as jumping aboard other people's ships and stealing their valuables. It is an expression of extreme amazement, used in circumstances when one feels as if one's very bones, or timbers, are shivering. I have not used the expression since one rainy night when it was necessary to pose as a pirate experiencing amazement, but when Captain Charmy Widdershins told the Hedge orphans where the _Queequeg_ was going and what it was searching for, there was a perfect opportunity to utter these words.

"Shiver me timbers!" Sonic cried.

"Your timbers!" the captain cried back. "Are the Hedges practicing piracy? Aye! My heavens! If your parents knew that you were stealing the treasures of others –"

"We're not pirates, Captain Charmy Widdershins," Tails said hastily. "Sonic is just using an expression he learned from an old movie. he just means that we're surprised.'

"Surprised?" The captain paced up and down in front of them, his waterproof suit crinkling with every step. "Do you think the _Queequeg_ made its difficult way up the Stricken Stream just for my own personal amusement? Aye? Do you think I would risk such terrible danger simply because I had no other plans for the afternoon? Aye? Do you think it was a crazy coincidence that you ran into our periscope? Aye? Do you think this uniform makes me look fat? Aye? Do you think members of V.F.D. would just sit and twiddle their thumbs while fount Eggman's treachery covers the land like crust covers the filling of a pie? Aye?"

"You were looking for us?" Amy asked in amazement. She was tempted to cry "Shiver me timbers!" like her brother, but she did not want to alarm Captain Charmy Widdershins any further.

"For you!" the captain cried. "Aye! For the sugar bowl! Aye! For justice! Aye! And liberty! Aye! For an opportunity to make the world quiet! Aye! And safe! Aye! And we may only have until Thursday! Aye! We're in terrible danger! Aye! So get to work!"

"Bamboozle!" Sonic cried.

"My brother is confused," Tails said, "and so are we, Captain Charmy Widdershins. If we could just stop for a moment, and hear your story from the beginning –"

"Stop for a moment?" the captain repeated in astonishment. "I've just explained our desperate circumstances, and you're asking me to hesitate? My dear boy, remember my personal Philosophy! Aye! 'He or she who hesitates is lost'! Now let's get moving!"

The children looked at one another in frustration. They did not want to get moving. It felt to the Hedge orphans that they had been moving almost constantly since that terrible day at the beach when their lives had been turned upside down. They had moved into Count Eggman's home, and then into the homes of various guardians. They had moved away from a village intent on burning them at the stake, and they had moved into a hospital that had burst into flames around them. They had moved to the hinterlands in the trunk of Count Eggman's car, and they had moved away from the hinterlands in disguise. They had moved up the Mortmain Mountains hoping to find one of their parents, and they had moved down the Mortmain Mountains thinking they would never see their parents again, and now, in a tiny submarine in the Stricken Stream, they wanted to stop moving, just for a little while, and receive some answers to questions they had been asking themselves since all this moving began.

"Stepfather," Fiona said gently, "why don't you start up the Queegueg's

engines, and I'll show the Hedges where our spare uniforms are?"

"I'm the captain!" the captain announced. "Ave! I'll give the orders around here!" Then he shrugged, and squinted up toward the ceiling. The Hedges noticed for the first time a ladder of rope running up the side of wall. It led up to a small shelf, where the children could see a large wheel, probably for steering, and a few rusty levers and switches that were Byzantine in their design, a phrase which here means "so complicated that perhaps even Tails Hedge would have trouble working them." "I order myself to go up the ladder," the captain continued a bit sheepishly, "and start the engines of the _Queequeg_.'" With one last "Aye!" the captain began hoisting himself toward the ceiling, and the Hedges were left alone with Fiona and Espio.

"You must be overwhelmed, Hedge '- Espio said. "I remember my first day aboard the _Queequeg_ – it made Lucky Smells Lumbermill seem calm and quiet!"

"Espio, why don't you get the Hedges some soda, while I find them some uniforms?" Fiona said.

"Soda?" Espio said, with a nervous glance at the captain, who was already halfway up the ladder. "We're supposed to save the soda for a special occasion."

"It is a special occasion," Fiona said. "We're welcoming three more volunteers on board. What kind of soda do you prefer, Hedges?"

"Anything but parsley," Tails said, referring to a beverage enjoyed by Eudora Squalor.

"I'll bring you some lemon-lime," Espio said. "Sailors should always make sure there's plenty of citrus in their system. I'm so glad to see you, children. You know, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I was so horrified after what happened in Paltryville that I couldn't stay at Lucky Smells and since then my life has been one big adventure!"

"I'm sorry that your leg never healed," Amy said, referring to Espio's limp. "I didn't realize the accident with the stamping machine was so serious,"

"That's not why I'm limping," Espio said. "I was bitten by a shark last week. It was very painful, but I'm quite lucky. Most people never get an opportunity to get so close to such a deadly animal!"

The Hedges watched him as he limped back through the kitchen door, whistling a bouncy tune. "Was Espio always optimistic when you knew him?" Fiona asked.

"Always," Tails said, blushing, and his siblings nodded in agreement. "We've never known anyone who could remain so cheerful, no matter what terrible things occurred,"

"To tell you the truth, I sometimes find it a bit tiresome," Fiona said, adjusting her triangular glasses, "Shall we find you some uniforms?"

The Hedges nodded, and followed Fiona out of the Main Hall and back into the narrow corridor. "I know you have a lot of questions," she said, "so I will try to tell you everything I know. My stepfather believes that he or she who hesitates is lost, but I have a more cautious personal Philosophy."

"We'd be very grateful if you might tell us a few things," Tails said. "First, how do you know who we are? Why were you looking for us? How did you know how to find us?"

"That's a lot of firsts," Fiona said with a smile. "I think you Hedges are forgetting that your exploits haven't exactly been a secret. Nearly every day there's been a story about you in one of the most popular newspapers."

"The Daily Punctilio?" Amy asked.' "I hope you haven't been believing the dreadful lies they've been printing about us."

"Of course not," Fiona said. "But even the most ridiculous of stories can contain a grain of truth. The Daily Punctilio said that you'd murdered a man in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and set fires at Heimlich Hospital and Caligari Carnival. We knew, of course, that you hadn't committed these crimes, but we could tell that you had been there. My stepfather and I figured that you'd found the secret stain on Madame Lulu's map, and were headed for the V.F.D. headquarters."

Tails gasped. "You know about Madame Lulu," he said, "and the coded stain?"

"My stepfather taught that code to Madame Lulu," Fiona explained, "a long time ago, when they were both young. Well, we heard about the destruction of the headquarters, so we assumed that you'd be heading back down the mountain. So I set a course for the _Queequeg_ to journey up the Stricken Stream."

"You traveled all the way up here," Tails said, "just to find us?"

Fiona looked down. "Well, no," she said. "You weren't the only thing at

V.F.D. headquarters. One of our Volunteer Factual Dispatches told us that the sugar bowl was there as well"

"Dephinpat?" Sonic asked.

"What are Volunteer Factual Dispatches exactly?" Tails translated. "They're a way of sharing information," Fiona said. "It's difficult for

volunteers to meet up with one another, so when they unlock a mystery they can write it in a telegram. That way, important information gets circulated, and before long our commonplace books will be full of information we can use to defeat our enemies. A commonplace book is a

–"

"We know what a commonplace book is," Amy said, and removed her dark blue notebook from his pocket. "I've been keeping one myself."

Fiona smiled, and drummed her gloved fingers on the cover of Amy's book. "I should have. known," she said. "If your brothers want to start books themselves, we should have a few spares. Everything's in our supply room."

"So are we going up to the ruins of the headquarters," Tails asked, "to get the sugar bowl? We didn't see it there."

"We think someone threw it out the window," Fiona answered, "when the fire began. If they threw the sugar bowl from the kitchen, it would have landed in the Stricken Stream and been carried by the water cycle all the way down the mountains. We were seeing if it could be found at the bottom of the stream when we happened upon you three."

"The stream probably carried it much further than this," Amy said thoughtfully.

"I think so too," Fiona agreed. "I'm hoping that you can discover its location by studying my stepfather's tidal charts. I can't make head or tail of them."

"I'll show you how to read them," Amy said. "It's not difficult. Tails too knows how to as well when he built a remote controlled submarine that can also serve as a plane"

"That's a good inventon Tails" Fiona complemented to Tails, who was blushing, "But what frightens me," Fiona continued. "Is that if those charts aren't difficult to read, then Count Eggman might have a chance of finding the sugar bowl before we do. My stepfather says that if the sugar bowl falls into his hands, then all of the efforts of all the volunteers will be for naught."

The Hedges nodded, and the four children made their way down the corridor in silence. The phrase "for naught" is simply a fancy way of saying "for nothing," and it doesn't matter which phrase you use, for they arc both equally difficult to admit. Later this afternoon, for instance, I will enter a large room full of sand, and if I do not find the test tube I am looking for, it will be difficult to admit that I have sifted through all that sand for nothing. If you insist on finishing this book, you will find it difficult to admit, between bouts of weeping, that you have read this

story for naught, and that it would have been better to page through tedious descriptions of the water cycle. And the Hedges did not want to find themselves admitting that all of their troubles had been for naught, that all their adventures meant nothing, and that their entire lives were naught and nothing, if Count Eggman managed to find this crucial sugar bowl before they did. The three siblings followed Fiona down the dim corridor and hoped that their time aboard the _Queequeg_ would not be another terrifying journey ending in more disappointment, disillusionment, and despair.

For the moment, however, their journey ended at a small door where Fiona stopped and turned to face the Hedges. "This is our supply room," she said, "Inside you'll find uniforms for the three of you, although even our smallest size might be too big for Sonic."

"Pinstripe," Sonic said. he meant something like, "Don't worry – I'm used to ill-fitting clothing," and his siblings were quick to translate.

"You'll need diving helmets, too," Fiona said. "This is an old submarine, and it could spring a leak. If the leak is serious, the pressure of the water could cause the walls of the _Queequeg_ to collapse, filling all these rooms and corridors with water. The oxygen systems contained in the diving helmets enable you to breathe underwater – for a short time, anyway."

"Your stepfather said that the helmets would be too big for Sonic, and that she'd have to curl up inside one," Tails said. "Is that safe?"

"Safe but uncomfortable," Fiona said, "like everything else on the _Queequeg_. This submarine used to be in wonderful shape, but without anyone who knows about mechanics, it's not quite up to its former glory. Many of the rooms have flooded, so I'm sorry to say that we'll be sleeping in very tight quarters. I hope you like bunk beds."

"We've slept on worse," Amy said.

"So I hear," Fiona replied. "I read a description of the Orphans Shack at Prufrock Preparatory School. That sounded terrible."

"So you knew about us, even then?" Tails asked. "Why didn't you find us sooner?"

Fiona sighed. "We knew about you," she said. "Every day I would read terrible stories in the newspaper, but my stepfather said we couldn't do anything about all the treachery those stories contained."

"Why not?" Amy asked.

"He said your troubles were too enormous," she replied. "I don't understand," Amy said.

"I don't really understand, either," Fiona admitted. "My stepfather said that the amount of treachery in this world is enormous, and that the best we could do was one small noble thing. That's why we're looking for the sugar bowl. You'd think that accomplishing such a small task would be easy, but we've been looking for ages and still haven't found it."

"But what's so important about the sugar bowl?" Tails asked.

Fiona sighed again, and blinked several times behind her triangular glasses. She looked so sad that the eledst Hedge almost wished he hadn't asked. "I don't know," she said. "He won't tell me."

"Whyno?" Sonic asked. "He said it was better I didn't know," Fiona said. "I guess that's enormous, too – an enormous secret. He said people had been destroyed for knowing such enormous secrets, and that he didn't want me in that sort of danger."

"But you're already in danger," Amy said. "We're all in danger. We're on board an unstable submarine, trying to find a tiny, important object before a nefarious villain gets his hands on it."

Fiona turned the handle of the door, which opened with a long, loud

creak that made the Hedges shiver. The room was very small and very dim, lit only by one small green light, and for a moment, it looked like the room was full of people staring silently at the children in the corridor. But then the siblings saw it was just a row of uniforms, hanging limply from hooks along the wall. "I guess there are worse dangers," Fiona said quietly. "I guess there are dangers we simply can't imagine."

The Hedges looked at their companion and then at the eerie row of empty uniforms. On a shelf above the waterproof suits was a row of large diving helmets, round spheres of metal with small circular windows in the middle so the children would be able to see out when they put them on. In the dim green light, the helmets looked a bit like eyes, glaring at the Hedges from the supply room just as the eye on Count Eggman's ankle had glared at them so many times before. Although they still weren't pirates, the siblings were tempted to say "shiver me timbers" once again as they stepped inside the small, cramped room, and felt themselves shiver down to their bones. They did not like to think about the _Queequeg_ springing a leak or collapsing, or to imagine themselves frantically attaching the diving helmets to their heads – or, in Sonic's case, frantically stuffing herself inside. They did not like to think about where Count Eggman might be, or imagine what would happen if he found the sugar bowl before they did. But most of all, the Hedge orphans did nor like to think about the dangers Fiona had mentioned – danger worse than the ones they faced, or dangers they simply couldn't imagine.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Four**

 _The_ expression "fits like a glove" is an odd one, because there are many different types of gloves and only a few of them are going to fit the situation you are in. If you need to keep your hands warm in a cold environment, then you'll need a fitted pair of insulated gloves, and a glove made to fit in the bureau of a dollhouse will be of no help whatsoever. If you need to sneak into a restaurant in the middle of the night and steal a pair of chopsticks without being discovered, then you'll need a sheer pair of gloves that leave no marks, and a glove decorated with loud bells simply will not do. And if you need to pass unnoticed in a shrubbery-covered landscape, then you'll need a very, very large glove made of green and leafy fabric, and an elegant pair of silk gloves will be entirely useless.

Nevertheless, the expression "fits like a glove" simply means that something is very suitable, the way a custard is suitable for dessert, or a pair of chopsticks is a suitable tool to remove papers from an open briefcase, and when the Hedge orphans put on the uniforms of the _Queequeg_ they found that they fitted the children like a glove, despite the fact that they did not actually fit that well.

Tails was so pleased that the uniforms had several loops around the waist, just perfect for holding tools, that he didn't care that his sleeves bagged at the elbows. Amy was happy that there was a waterproof pocket for her commonplace hook, and didn't care that her hoots were a bit too tight. And Sonic was reassured that the shiny material was sturdy enough to resist cooking spills as well as water, and didn't mind rolling up the legs of the suit almost all the way so he could walk.

But it was more than the individual features of the uniforms that felt fitting – it was the place and the people they represented. For a long time the Hedges had felt as if their lives were a damaged Frisbee, tossed from person to person and from place to place without ever really being appreciated or fitting in. But as they zipped up their uniforms and smoothed out the portraits of Herman Melville, the children felt as if the Frisbee of their lives just might be repaired.

In wearing the uniform of the _Queequeg_ , the siblings felt a part of something – not a family, exactly, but a gathering of people who had all volunteered for the same mission. To think that their skills in inventing, research, and cooking would be appreciated was something they had not thought in a long time, and as they stood in the supply room and regarded one another, this feeling fit them like a glove.

"Shall we go back to the Main Hall?" Tails asked. "I'm ready to take a look at the telegram device."

"Let me just loosen the buckles on these boots," Amy said, "and I'll be ready to tackle those tidal charts. Tails can help when he's finished"

"Cuisi" Sonic said. By "Cuisi," she meant something like, "I'm looking forward to examining the kitch –" but a loud scraping sound from overhead stopped the youngest Hedge from finishing her sentence. The entire submarine seemed to shake, and a few drops of water fell from the ceiling onto the Hedges' heads.

"What was that?" Tails asked, picking up a diving helmet. "Do you think the _Queequeg_ has sprung a leak?"

"I don't know," Amy said, picking up one helmet for himself and another for Sonic. "Let's go find out."

The three Hedges hurried back down the corridor to the Main Hall as the horrid scraping sound continued. If you have ever heard the sound of fingernails against a chalkboard, then you know how unnerving a

scraping sound can be, and to the children it sounded as if the largest fingernails in the world had mistaken the submarine for a piece of educational equipment.

"Captain Charmy Widdershins!" Tails cried over the scraping sound as the Hedges entered the hall. The captain was still at the top of the ladder, grasping the steering wheel in his gloved hand. "What's going on?"

"This darned steering mechanism is a disgrace!" the captain cried in disgust. "Aye! The _Queequeg_ just bumped against a rock formation on the side of the stream. If I hadn't managed to get the sub back in control, the Submarine Q and Its Crew of Two would be sleeping with the fishes! Aye!"

"Perhaps I should examine the steering mechanism first," Tails said, "and fix the telegram device later."

"Don't be ridiculous!" the captain said. "If we can't receive any Volunteer Factual Dispatches, we might as well be wandering around with our eyes closed! We must find the sugar bowl before Count Eggman! Aye!

Our personal safety isn't nearly as important! Now hurry up! Aye! Get a move on! Aye! Get cracking! Aye! Get a glass of water if you're thirsty! Aye! He or she who hesitates is lost!"

Tails didn't bother to point out that finding the sugar bowl would be impossible if the submarine was destroyed, and he knew better than to argue with the captain's personal Philosophy.

"It's worth a try," he said, and walked over to the small wheeled platform. "Do you mind if I use this?" she asked Fiona. "It'll help me get a good look at the device's machinery."

"Be my guest," Fiona said. "Amy, let's get to work on the tidal charts. We can study them at the table, and keep an eye out for glimpses of the sugar bowl through the porthole. I don't think we'll see it, but it's worth

taking a look."

"Fiona," Amy said hesitantly, "could you also take a look for our friend, Shadow Quagmire? He was carried away by the stream's other tributary, and we haven't seen him since."

"Shadow Quagmire?" Fiona asked. "The cartographer?" "He's a friend of ours," Tails said. "Do you know him?"

"Only by reputation," Fiona said, using a phrase which here means "I don't know him personally but I've heard of the work he does."

"The volunteers lost track of him a long time ago, along with Hector and the other Quagmire triplets."

"The Quagmires haven't been as lucky as we have," Tails said, tying his bangs up in a ribbon to help him focus on repairing the telegram device. "I'm hoping you'll spot him with the periscope."

"It's worth a try," Fiona said, as Espio walked through the kitchen doors, wearing an apron over his uniform.

"Sonic?" he asked. "I heard you were going to help me in the kitchen. We're a bit low on supplies, I'm afraid. Using the _Queequeg_ nets I managed to catch a few cod, and we have half a sack of potatoes, but not much else. Do you have any ideas about what to make for dinner?"

"Chowda?" Sonic asked.

"It's worth a try," Espio said, and for the next few hours, all three Hedges tried to see if their tasks were worth a try.

Tails wheeled herself underneath several pipes to get a good look at the telegram device, and frowned as he twisted wires and tightened a few screws with a screwdriver he found lying around. Amy sat at the table and looked over the tidal charts, using a pencil to trace possible paths the sugar bowl might have taken as the water cycle sent it

tumbling down the Stricken Stream. And Sonic worked with Espio, standing on a large soup pot so she could reach the counter of the small, grimy kitchen, boiling potatoes and picking tiny bones out of the cod.

And as the afternoon turned to evening, and the waters of the Stricken Stream grew even darker in the porthole, the Main Hall of the _Queequeg_ was quiet as all the volunteers worked on the tasks at hand. But even when Captain Charmy Widdershins climbed down from the ladder, retrieved a small bell from a pocket of his uniform, and filled the room with the echoes of its loud, metallic ring, the Hedges could not be certain if all their efforts had been worth a try at all.

"Attention!" the captain said. "Aye! I want the entire crew of the _Queequeg_ to report on their progress! Gather 'round the table and tell me what's going on!" Tails wheeled himself out from under the telegram device, and joined his sister and Fiona at the table, while Sonic and Espio emerged from the kitchen.

"I'll report first!" the captain said. "Aye! Because I'm the captain! Not because I'm showing off! Aye! I try not to show off very much! Aye!

Because it's rude! Aye! I've managed to steer us further down the Stricken Stream without humping into anything else! Aye! Which is much harder than it sounds! Aye! We've reached the sea! Aye! Now it should be easier not to run into anything! Aye! Tails, what about you?"

"Well, I thoroughly examined the telegram device," Tails said. "I made a few minor repairs, but I found nothing that would interfere with receiving a telegram."

"You're saying that the device isn't broken, aye?" the captain demanded.

"Aye," Tails said, growing more comfortable with the captain's speech. "I think there must be a problem at the other end."

"Procto?" Sonic asked, which meant "The other end?"

"A telegram requires two devices," Tails said. "One to send the message and the other to receive it. I think you haven't been receiving Volunteer Factual Dispatches because whoever sends the messages is having a problem with their machine."

"But all sorts of volunteers send us messages," Fiona said.

"Aye!" the captain said. "We've received dispatches from more than twenty-five agents!"

"Then many machines must be damaged," Tails replied.

"Sabotage," Amy said.

"It does sound like the damage has been done on purpose," Tails agreed. "Remember when we sent a telegram to Mr.

Poe, from the Last Chance General Store?"

"Silencio," Sonic said, which meant "We never heard a reply." "They're closing in," the captain said darkly. "Our enemies are

preventing us from communicating."

"I don't see how Count Eggman would have time to destroy all those machines," Amy said. "Many telegrams travel through telephone lines," Fiona said. "It wouldn't be difficult."

"Besides, Eggman isn't the only enemy," Tails said, thinking of two other villains the Hedges had encountered on Mount Fraught.

"Aye!" the captain said. "That's for certain. There is evil out there you cannot even imagine. Amy, have you made any progress on the tidal charts?"

Amy spread out a chart on the table so everyone could see. The chart was really more of a map, showing the Stricken Stream winding through the mountains before reaching the sea, with tiny arrows and notations describing the way the water was moving. The arrows and notes were in several different colors of ink, as if the chart had been passed from researcher to researcher, each adding notes as he or she discovered more information about the area. "It's more complicated than I thought," the middle Hedge said, "and much more dull. These charts note

every single detail concerning the water cycle."

"Dull?" the captain roared. "Aye? We're in the middle of a desperate mission and all you can think of is your own entertainment? Aye? Do you want us to hesitate? Stop our activities and put on a puppet show just so you won't find this submarine dull?"

"You misunderstood me," Amy said quickly. "All I meant was that it's easier to research something that's interesting."

"You sound like Fiona," the captain said. "When I want her to research the life of Herman Melville, she works slowly, but she's quick as a whip when the subject is mushrooms."

"Mushrooms?" Tails asked. "Are you a mycologist?"

Fiona smiled, and her eyes grew wide behind her triangular glasses. "I never thought I'd meet someone who knew that word," she said. "Besides me. Yes, I'm a mycologist. I've been interested in fungi all my life. If we have time, I'll show you my mycological library."

"Time?" Captain Charmy Widdershins repeated. "We don't have time for fungus books! Aye! We don't have time for you two to do all that flirting, either!"

"We're not flirting!" Fiona said. "We're having a conversation." "It looked like flirting to me," the captain said. "Aye!"

"Why don't you tell us about your research," Tails said to Amy, knowing that his sister would rather talk about the tidal charts than her brothers personal life.

Amy nodded and pointed to a point on the chart. "If my calculations are correct," she said, "the sugar bowl would have been carried down the sane tributary we went down in the toboggan. The prevailing currents of the stream lead all the way down here, where the sea begins."

"So it was carried out to sea," Tails said.

"I think so," Amy said. "And we can see here that the tides would move it away from Sontag Shore in a northeasterly direction."

"Sink?" Sonic asked, which meant something like, "Wouldn't the sugar bowl just drift to the ocean floor?"

"It's too small," Amy said. "Oceans are in constant motion, and an object that falls into the sea could end up miles away. It appears that the tides and currents in this part of the ocean would take the sugar bowl past the Gulag Archipelago here, and then head down toward the Mediocre Barrier Reef before turning at this point here, which is marked 'A.A.' Do you know what that is, Captain? It looks like some sort of floating structure."

The captain sighed, and raised one finger to fiddle with the curl of his mustache. "Aye," he said sadly. "Anwhistle Aquatics. It's a marine research center and a rhetorical advice service – or it was. It burned down."

"Anwhistle?" Tails asked. "That was Aunt Sticks's last name."

"Aye," the captain said. "Anwhistle Aquatics was founded by Gregor Anwhistle, the famous ichnologist and Sticks's brother-in-law. But all that's ancient history. Where did the sugar bowl go next?"

The Hedges would have preferred to learn more, but knew better than to argue with the captain, and Amy pointed to a small oval on the chart to continue his report. "This is the part that confuses me," he said. "You see this oval, right next to Anwhistle Aquatics? It's marked but there's no other explanation."

Captain Charmy Widdershins said, and stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "I've never seen an oval like that on a chart like this."

"Wait, there's something else confusing about it," Tails said, peering at the

Oval over Amy's sholder. There are two different arrows inside it, and each one points in a different direction."

"It looks like the tide is going two ways at once," Fiona said. Tails frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," he said.

"I'm confused, too," Amy said. "According to my calculations, the sugar bowl was probably carried right to this place on the map. But where it went from there I can't imagine."

"I guess we should set a course for G.G., whatever it might be," Fiona said, "and see what we can find when we get there."

"I'm the captain!" the captain cried. "I'll give the orders around here! Aye! And I order that we set a course for that oval, and see what we can find when we get there! But first I'm hungry! And thirsty! Aye! And my arm itches! I can scratch my own arm, but Cookie and Sonic, you are responsible for food and drink! Aye!"

"Sonic helped me make a chowder that should be ready in a few minutes," Espio said. "His teeth were very handy in dicing the boiled potatoes."

"Flush," Sonic said, which meant "Don't worry – I cleaned my teeth before using them as kitchen implements."

"Chowder? Aye! Chowder sounds delicious!" the captain cried. "And what about dessert? Aye? Dessert is the most important meal of the day! Aye! In my opinion! Even though it's not really a meal! Aye!"

"Tonight, the only dessert we have is gum," Espio said. "I still have some left from my days at the lumbermill."

"I think I'll pass on dessert," Amy said, who'd had such a terrible time at Lucky Smells Lumbermill that she no longer had a taste for gum.

"Yomhuledet," Sonic said. he meant "Don't worry – Espio and I have

arranged a surprise dessert for tomorrow night," but of course only his siblings could understand the youngest Hedge's unusual way of talking.

Nevertheless, as soon as Sonic spoke, Captain Charmy Widdershins stood up from the table and began crying out in astonishment. "Aye!" he cried. "Dear God! Holy Buddha! Charles Darwin! Duke Ellington! Aye! Fiona – turn off the engines! Aye! Cookie – turn off the stove! Aye! Tails – make sure the telegram device is off! Aye! Amy! Gather your materials together so nothing rolls around! Aye! Calm down! Work quickly! Don't panic! Help! Aye!"

"What's going on?" Espio asked.

"What is it, stepfather?" Fiona asked.

For once, the captain was silent, and merely pointed at a screen on the submarine wall. The screen looked like a piece of graph paper, lit up in green light, with a glowing letter Q in the center.

"That looks like a sonar detector," Tails said.

"It is a sonar detector," Fiona said. "We can tell if any other undersea craft are approaching us by detecting the sounds they make. The Q represents the _Queequeg_ and –"

The mycologist gasped, and the Hedges looked at where she was pointing. At the very top of the panel was another glowing symbol, which was moving down the screen at a fast clip, a phrase which here means "straight toward the _Queequeg_." Fiona did not say what this green symbol stood for, and the children could not bear to ask. It was an eye, staring at the frightened volunteers and wiggling its long, skinny eyelashes, which protruded from every side.

"Eggman!" Sonic said in a whisper.

"There's no way of knowing for sure," Fiona said, "but we'd better follow

my stepfather's orders. If it's another submarine, then it has a sonar detector too. If the _Queequeg_ is absolutely silent, they'll have no idea we're here."

"Aye!" the captain said. "Hurry! He who hesitates is lost!"

Nobody bothered to add "Or she" to the captain 's personal Philosophy, but instead hurried to silence the submarine. Fiona climbed up the rope ladder and turned off the whirring engine. Tails wheeled back into the machinery of the telegram device and turned it off. Espio and Sonic ran into the kitchen to turn off the stove, so even the bubbling of their homemade chowder would not give the _Queequeg_ away. And Amy and the captain gathered up the materials on the table so that nothing would make even the slightest rattle. Within moments the submarine was silent as a grave, and all the volunteers stood mutely at the table, looking out the porthole into the gloomy water of the sea.

As the eye on the sonar screen drew closer to the Q, they could see something emerge from the darkened waters – a strange shape that became clearer as it got closer and closer to the _Queequeg_. It was, indeed, another submarine, the likes of which the Hedges had never seen before, even in the strangest of books. It was much, much bigger than the _Queequeg_ , and as it approached, the children had to cover their mouths so their gasps could not be heard.

The second submarine was in the shape of a giant octopus, with an enormous metal dome for a head and two wide portholes for eyes. A real octopus, of course, has eight legs, but this submarine had many more.

What had appeared to be eyelashes on the sonar screen were really small metal tubes, protruding from the body of the octopus and circling in the water, making thousands of bubbles that hurried toward the surface as if they were frightened of the underwater craft.

The octopus drew closer, and all six passengers on the _Queequeg_ stood as still as statues, hoping the submarine had not discovered them. The strange craft was so close the Hedges could see a shadowy figure

inside one of the octopus's eyes – a tall, lean figure, and although the children could not see any further details, they were positive the figure had one eyebrow instead of two, filthy fingernails instead of good grooming habits, and a tattoo of an eye on its left ankle.

"Count Eggman," Sonic whispered, before he could stop herself.

The figure in the porthole twitched, as if Sonic's tiny noise had caused the _Queequeg_ to be detected. Spouting more bubbles, the octopus drew closer still, and any moment it seemed that one of the legs of the octopus would be heard scraping against the outside of the _Queequeg_.

The three children looked down at their helmets, which they had left on the floor, and wondered if they should put them on, so they might survive if the submarine collapsed.

Fiona grabbed her stepfather 's arm, but Captain Charmy Widdershins shook his head silently, and pointed at the sonar screen again. The eye and the Q were almost on top of one another on the screen, but that was not what the captain was pointing at. There was a third shape of glowing green light, this one the biggest of all, a huge curved tube with a small circle at the end of it, slithering toward the center of the screen like a snake. But this third underwater craft didn't look like a snake. As it approached the eye and the Q, the small circle leading the enormous curved tube toward the _Queequeg_ and its frightened volunteer crew, the shape looked more like a question mark.

The Hedges stared at this new, third shape approaching them in eerie silence, and felt as if they were about to be consumed by the very questions they were trying to answer. Captain Charmy Widdershins pointed at the porthole again, and the children watched the octopus stop, as if it too had detected this strange third shape. Then the legs of the octopus began whirring even more furiously, and the strange submarine began to recede from view, a phrase which here means "disappear from the porthole as it hurried away from the _Queequeg_."

The Hedges looked at the sonar screen, and watched the question

mark follow the glowing green eye in silence until both shapes disappeared from the sonar detector and the _Queequeg_ was alone. The six passengers waited a moment and then sighed with relief.

"It's gone," Tails said. "Count Eggman didn't find us."

"I knew we'd be safe," Espio said, optimistic as usual. "Eggman is probably in a good mood anyway."

The Hedges did not bother to say that their enemy was only in a good mood when one of his treacherous plans was succeeding, or when the enormous fortune, left behind by the Hedge parents, appeared to be falling into his grubby hands.

"What was that, Stepfather?" Fiona said. "Why did he leave?"

"What was that third shape?" Tails asked. The captain shook his head again. "Something very bad," he said. "Even worse than Eggman, probably. I told you Hedges that there is evil you cannot even imagine."

"We don't have to imagine it," Amy said. "We saw it there on the screen."

"That screen is nothing," the captain said. "It's just a piece of equipment, aye? There was a Philosopher who said that all of life is just shadows. He said that people were just sitting in a cave, watching shadows on the cave wall. Aye – shadows of something much bigger and grander than themselves. Well, that sonar detector is like our cave wall, showing us the shape of things much more powerful and terrifying."

"I don't understand," Fiona said.

"I don't want you to understand," the captain said, putting his arm around her. "That's why I haven't told you why the sugar bowl is so very crucial. There are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know, even as those secrets get closer and closer. Aye! In any case, I'm hungry. Aye! Shall we eat?" The captain rang his bell again, and the

Hedges felt as if they had awoken from a deep sleep.

"I'll serve the chowder," Espio said. "Come on, Sonic, why don't you help me?"

"I'll turn the engines back on," Fiona said, and began climbing the rope ladder. "Tails, there's a drawer in the table full of silverware. Perhaps you and your brother could set the table."

"Of course," Amy said, but then frowned as she turned to her brother. The Eldest Hedge was staring at the tidal chart with a look of utter concentration. His eyes were so bright behind his glasses that they looked a bit like the glowing symbols on the sonar detector. "Tails?" he said.

Tails didn't answer his sister, but turned his gaze from the chart to Captain Charmy Widdershins. "I may have just looked at this tidal chart, and I not know why the sugar bowl's important," he said, "but I've just figured out where it is."

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Five**

 _When_ you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means "an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking." Although lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and had conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. "Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?" for instance, is a very poor conversational opener, because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as "What would drive a man to commit arson?", "Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?" and "Madame di Lustro, I believe I've discovered your true identity!", all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining.

When Tails Hedge announced that he'd discovered the location of the sugar bowl, it was one of the best conversational openers in the history of dinner gatherings, because everyone aboard the _Queequeg_ began talking at once, and dinner had not even been served.

"Aye?" Captain Charmy Widdershins shouted. "You've figured out where the tide took it? Aye? But you just said you didn't know! Aye! Your sister said that she were confused by the tidal charts, and that oval marked 'G.G.'! Aye! And yet you've figured it out by only looking at it for five minutes! Aye! You're a genius! Aye! You're a smarty-pants! Aye! You're a bookworm! Aye! No – you're an inventor! Aye! You're brilliant! Aye! You're sensational!

Aye! If you find me the sugar bowl, I'll allow you to marry Fiona!"

"Stepfather!" Fiona cried, blushing behind her triangular glasses.

"Don't worry," the captain replied, "we'll find a husband for Amy, too! Aye! Perhaps we'll find your long-lost brother, Fiona! He's much older, of course, and he's been missing for years, but if Amy can locate the sugar bowl she could probably find him! Aye! He's a charming man, so you'd probably fall in love with him, Amy, and then we could have a double wedding! Aye! Right here in the Main Hall of the _Queequeg_! Aye! I would be happy to officiate! Aye! I have a bow tie I've been saving for a special occasion! Oh, he's a bit too old for you Amy. Aye!"

"Captain Charmy Widdershins," Amy said, "let's try to stick to the subject of the sugar bowl." She did not add that she was not interested in getting married for quite some time, particularly after Count Eggman had tried to marry her in one of his early schemes.

"Aye!" the captain cried. "Of course! Naturally! Aye! Tell us everything, Tails! We'll eat while you talk! Aye! Sonic! Cookie! Serve the chowder!"

"Chowder is served!" announced Espio, as he hurried from the kitchen carrying two steaming bowls of thick soup.

The youngest Hedge trailed behind him. Sonic was still a bit too young to carry hot food by himself, but he had found a pepper grinder, and circled the table offering fresh ground pepper to anyone who wanted some.

"Double pepper for me, Sonic!" Captain Charmy Widdershins cried, snatching the first bowl of chowder, although it is more polite to let one's guests be served first. "A nice hot bowl of chowder! A double helping of pepper!

The location of the sugar bowl! Aye! That'll blow the barnacles off me! Aye! I'm so glad I scooped you Hedges out of the stream!"

"I'm glad, too," Fiona said, smiling shyly at Tails.

"I couldn't be happier about it," Espio said, serving two more bowls of chowder. "I thought I'd never see you Hedges again, and here you

are! All three of you have grown up so nicely, even though you've been constantly pursued by an evil villain and falsely accused of numerous crimes!"

"You certainly have had a harrowing journey," Fiona said, using a word which here means "frantic and extremely distressing."

"I'm afraid we may have another harrowing journey ahead of us," Tails said. "When Captain Charmy Widdershins was talking about the Philosopher who said that all of life is just shadows in a cave, I realized at once what that oval must be. Along with what Amy said…"

"A Philosopher?" the captain asked. "That's impossible! Aye!"

"Absurdio," Sonic said, which meant "Philosophers live at the tops of mountains or in ivory towers, not underneath the sea."

"I think Tails means a cave," Amy said quickly, rather than translating. "The oval must mark the entrance to a cave."

"It begins right near Anwhistle Aquatics," Tails said, pointing to the chart. "Like Amy said, the currents of the ocean would have brought the sugar bowl right to the entrance, and then the currents of the cave would have carried it far inside."

"But the chart only shows the entrance to the cave," Amy said. "We don't know what it's like inside. I wish Shadow was here. With his knowledge of maps, he might know the path of the cave."

"But Shadow isn't here," Tails said gently. "I guess we'll be traveling in uncharted waters."

"That'll be fun," Espio said.

The Hedges looked at one another. The phrase "uncharted waters" does not only refer to underground locations that do not appear on charts. It is a phrase that can describe any place that is unknown, such as a forest in which every explorer has been lost, or one's own future, which

cannot be known until it arrives. You don't have to be an optimist, like Espio, to find uncharted waters fun. I myself have spent many an enjoyable afternoon exploring the uncharted waters of a book I have not read, or a hiding place I discovered in a sideboard, a word which here means "a piece of furniture in the dining room, with shelves and drawers to hold various useful items." But the Hedges had already spent a great deal of time exploring uncharted waters, from the uncharted waters of Lake Lachrymose and its terrifying creatures, to the uncharted waters of secrets found in the Library of Records at Heimlich Hospital, to the uncharted waters of Count Eggman's wickedness, which were deeper and darker than any waters of the sea. After all of their uncharted traveling, the Hedge orphans were not in the mood to explore any uncharted waters, and could not share Espio's optimistic enthusiasm.

"It won't be the first time the _Queequeg's_ been in uncharted waters," Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "Aye – most of this sea was first explored by

V.F.D. submarines."

"We thought V.F.D. stood for Volunteer Fire Department," Tails said. "Why would a fire department spend so much time underwater?"

"V.F.D. isn't just a fire department," the captain said, but his voice was very quiet, as if he were talking more to himself than to his crew. "Aye – it started that way. But the volunteers were interested in every such thing! I was one of the first to sign up for Voluntary Fish Domestication. That was one of the missions of Anwhistle Aquatics. Aye! I spent four long years training salmon to swim upstream and search for forest fires. That was when you were very young, Fiona, but your brother worked right alongside me. You should have seen him sneaking extra worms to his favorites! Aye! The program was a modest success! Aye! But then Café Salmonella came along, and took our entire fleet away. The Snicket siblings fought as best they could. Aye! Historians call it the Snicket Snickersnee! Aye! But as the poet wrote, 'Too many waiters turn out to be traitors.' "

"The Snicket siblings?" Amy was quick to ask.

"Aye," the captain said. "Three of them, each as noble as the next. Aye! Kit Snicket helped build this submarine! Aye! Jacques Snicket proved that the Royal Gardens Fire was arson! Aye! And the third sibling, with that woman S. Thea–"

"You Hedges knew Jacques Snicket, didn't you?" asked Fiona, who wasn't shy about interrupting her stepfather.

"Very briefly," Tails said, "and we recently found a message addressed to him. That's how we found about Thursday's gathering, at the last safe place."

"Nobody would write a message to Jacques," Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "Aye! Jacques is dead!"

"Etartsigam!" Sonic said, and her siblings quickly explained that she meant "The initials were J.S."

"It must be some other J.S.," Fiona said.

"Speaking of mysterious initials," Amy said, "I wonder what G.G. stands for. If we knew what the cave was called, we might have a better idea of our journey."

"Aye!" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "Let's guess! Great Glen! Aye! Green Glade! Aye! Glamorous Glacier! Aye! Gleeful Gameroom! Aye! Glass Goulash! Aye! Gothic Government! Aye! Grandma's Gingivitis! Aye! Girl Getting-up-from-table! Aye!"

Indeed, the captain's stepdaughter had stood up, wiped her mouth with a napkin embroidered with a portrait of Herman Melville, and walked over to a sideboard tucked into a far corner. Fiona opened a cabinet and revealed a few shelves stuffed with books.

"Yesterday I started reading a new addition to my mycological library,"

she said, standing on tiptoes to reach the shelf. "I just remembered reading something that might come in handy."

The captain fingered his mustache in astonishment. "You and your mushrooms and molds!" the captain said. "I thought I'd never live to see your mycological studies be put to good use," and I'm sorry to say he was right.

"Let's see," Fiona said, paging through a thick book entitled _Mushroom Minutiae_ , a word which here means "obscure facts."

"It was in the table of contents – that's all I've read so far. It was about halfway through." She brought the book over to the table, and ran a finger down the table of contents while the Hedges leaned over to see. "Chapter Thirty-Six, The Yeast of Beasts. Chapter Thirty-Seven, Morel Behavior in a Free Society. Chapter Thirty-Eight, Fungible Mold, Moldable Fungi. Chapter Thirty-Nine, Visitable Fungal Ditches. Chapter Forty, The Gorgonian Grotto – there!"

"Grotto?" Sonic asked.

'Grotto' is another word for 'cave'," Amy explained, as Fiona flipped ahead to Chapter Forty.

'The Gorgonian Grotto,' " she read, " 'located in propinquity to Anwhistle Aquatics, has appropriately wraithlike nomenclature, with roots in Grecian mythology, as this conical cavern is fecund with what is perhaps the bugaboo of the entire mycological pantheon.' "

"Aye! I told you that book was too difficult!" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "A young child can't unlock that sort of vocabulary."

"It's a very complicated prose style," Amy admitted, "but I think I know what it says. The Gorgonian Grotto was named after something in Greek mythology."

"A Gorgon," Tails said. "Like that woman with snakes instead of hair."

"She could turn people into stone," Fiona said.

"She was probably nice, when you got to know her," Espio said. "Aye! I think I went to school with such a woman!" the captain said. "I don't think she was a real person," Tails said. "I think she was

legendary. The book says it's appropriate that the grotto is named after a legendary monster, because there's a sort of monster living in a cave – a bugaboo."

"Bugaboo?" Sonic asked.

"A bugaboo can be any kind of monster," Amy said. "We could call Count Eggman a bugaboo, if we felt so inclined."

"I'd rather not speak of him at all," Tails said.

"This bugaboo is a fungus of some sort," Fiona said, and continued reading from _Mushroom_ _Minutiae_. " 'The _Medusoid Mycelium_ has a unique conducive strategy of waxing and waning: first a brief dormant cycle, in which the mycelium is nearly invisible, and then a precipitated flowering into speckled stalks and caps of such intense venom that it is fortunate the grotto serves as quarantine.' "

"I didn't understand all of that scientific terminology," Amy said.

"I did," Fiona said. "There are three main parts to a mushroom. One is the cap, which is shaped like an umbrella, and the second is the stalk, which holds the umbrella up. Those are the parts you can see."

"There's part of a mushroom you can't see?" Tails asked.

"It's called the mycelium," Fiona replied. "It's like a bunch of thread, branching out underneath the ground. Some mushrooms have mycelia that go on for miles."

"How do you spell 'mycelium'?" Amy asked, reaching into his

waterproof pocket. "I want to write this down in my commonplace book." Fiona pointed the word out on the page.

"The _Medusoid Mycelium_ waxes and wanes," she said, "which means that the caps and stalks spring up from the mycelium, and then wither away, and then spring up again. It sounds like you wouldn't know the mushrooms are there until they poke up out of the ground."

The Hedges pictured a group of mushrooms suddenly springing up under their feet, and felt a bit queasy, as if they already knew of the dreadful encounter they would soon have with this terrible fungus.

"That sounds unnerving," Tails said.

"It gets worse," Fiona said. "The mushrooms are exceedingly poisonous. Listen to this: 'As the poet says, "A single spore has such grim power That you may die within the hour." ' A spore is like a seed – if it has a place to grow, it will become another mycelium. But if someone eats it, or even breathes it in, it can cause death."

"Within the hour?" Amy said. "That's a fast-acting poison."

"Most fungal poisons have cures," Fiona said. "The poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines. I've been working on a few myself. But this book says it's lucky the grotto acts as quarantine."

"Quarwa?" Sonic asked.

"Quarantine is when something dangerous is isolated, so the danger cannot spread," Tails explained. "Because the _Medusoid Mycelium_ is in uncharted waters, very few people have been poisoned. If someone brought even one spore to dry land, who knows what would happen?"

"We won't find out!" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "We're not going to take any spores! Aye! We're just going to grab the sugar bowl and be on our way! Aye! I'll set a course right now!" The captain bounded up from the

table and began climbing the rope ladder to the _Queequeg's_ controls.

"Are you sure we should continue our mission?" Fiona asked her stepfather, shutting the book. "It sounds very dangerous."

"Dangerous? Aye! Dangerous and scary! Aye! Scary and difficult! Aye! Difficult and mysterious! Aye! Mysterious and uncomfortable! Aye!

Uncomfortable and risky! Aye! Risky and noble! Aye!"

"I suppose the fungus can't hurt us if we're inside the submarine," Espio said, struggling to remain optimistic.

"Even if it could!" the captain cried, standing at the top of the rope ladder and gesturing dramatically as he delivered an impassioned oratory, a phrase which here means "emotional speech that the Hedges found utterly convincing, even if they did not quite agree with every word."

"The amount of treachery in this world is enormous!" he cried. "Aye! Think of the crafts we saw on the sonar screen! Think of Count Eggman's enormous submarine, and the even more enormous one that chased it away! Aye! "There's always something more enormous and more terrifying on our tails! Aye! And so many of the noble submarines are gone! Aye! You think the Herman Melville suits are the only noble uniforms in the world? There used to be volunteers with P G. Wodehouse on their uniforms, and Carl Van Vechten. There was Comyns and Cleary and Archy and Mehitabel. But now volunteers are scarce! So the best we can do is one small noble thing! Aye! Like retrieving the sugar bowl from the Gorgonian Grotto, no matter how grim it sounds! Aye! Remember my personal Philosophy! He who hesitates is lost!"

"Or she!" Fiona said.

"Or she," the captain agreed. "Aye?" "Aye!" Tails cried.

"Aye!" Amy shouted. "Aye!" Sonic shrieked. "Hooray!" Espio yelled.

Captain Charmy Widdershins peered down in annoyance at Espio, whom he would have preferred say "Aye!" along with everyone else. "Cookie!" he ordered. "Do the dishes! The rest of you get some shut-eye! Aye!"

"Shut-eye?" Tails asked.

"Aye! It means 'sleep'!" the captain explained.

"We know what it means," Amy said. "We're just surprised that we're supposed to sleep through the mission."

"It'll take some time to get to the cave!" the captain said. "I want you four to be well-rested in case you're needed! Now go to your barracks! Aye!"

It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting. The Hedges were not particularly in the mood to toss and turn in the _Queequeg's_ barracks – a word which here means "a type of bedroom that is usually uncomfortable" – as the submarine drew closer and closer to the mysterious grotto and its indispensable item, a phrase which here means "the sugar bowl, although the children did not know why it was so important."

But as they followed Fiona out of the Main Hall and back down the corridor, past the plaque advertising the captain's personal Philosophy, the door to the supply room, and an uncountable number of leaky metal pipes, the siblings felt quite tired, and by the time Fiona opened a door to reveal a small, green-lit room stacked with saggy bunk beds, the three children were already yawning.

Perhaps it was because of their long, exhausting day, which had begun on the icy summit of Mount Fraught, but Tails didn't ponder one single mechanical idea as he got into bed, as he usually did before he went to sleep. Amy scarcely had time to put her glasses on a small bedside table before she nodded off, a phrase which here means "fell asleep without considering even one of the books she had recently read." Sonic curled up on a pillow, and he didn't waste one moment dreaming up new recipes – preferably entrées that were less mushy than chowder, as he still enjoyed biting things as much as he did when he was a baby, before he was dreaming himself. And even Fiona, whose bedtime habits are less familiar to me than that of the Hedges', put her glasses next to Amy's and Tails' and was asleep in moments.

The whirring engine of the _Queequeg_ sent them deeper and deeper into slumber for several hours, and they probably would have slept much longer if the children hadn't been awakened by a terrible – and terribly familiar – noise. It was a loud, unnerving scraping, like fingernails against a chalkboard, and the Hedges were almost shaken out of bed as the entire submarine rattled.

"What was that?" Tails asked.

"We hit something," Fiona said grimly, grabbing her glasses in one hand and her diving helmet in the other. "We'd better see what the situation is."

The Hedges nodded in agreement, and hurried out of the barracks and back down the corridor. There was an unnerving splashing sound coming from a few of the tubes, and Amy had to pick up Sonic to carry him over several large puddles.

"Is the submarine collapsing?" Amy asked.

"We'll know soon enough," Fiona said, and she was correct.

In moments she'd led the Hedges Back into the Main Hall, where

Espio and the captain were standing at the table, staring out the porthole into black nothingness. They each had grim expressions on their faces, although Espio was trying to smile at the same time.

"It's good you got some rest," the optimist said. "There's a real adventure ahead of you."

"I'm glad you brought your diving helmets," Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "Aye!"

"Why?" Tails asked. "Is the _Queequeg_ seriously damaged?"

"Aye!" the captain said. "I mean, no. The submarine is damaged, but she'll hold – for now. We reached the Gorgonian Grotto about an hour ago, and I was able to steer us inside with no problem. But the cave got narrower and narrower as we maneuvered further and further inside."

"The book said the grotto was conical," Amy said. "That means it's shaped like a cone."

"Aye!" the captain said. "The entrance was the wide end of the cone, but now it's too narrow for the submarine to travel. If we want to retrieve the sugar bowl we'll have to use something smaller."

"Periscope?" Sonic asked.

"No," Captain Charmy Widdershins replied. "A child."

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Six**

" _You_ youngsters look very spiffy in those helmets!" Espio said, with a wide, optimistic smile on his face. "I know you must be a little nervous, but I'm sure all of you children will rise to the occasion!"

The Hedge orphans sighed, and looked at one another from inside their diving helmets. When someone tells you that you will rise to the occasion, it means they think you'll be strong or skillful enough for a particular situation, but Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not know if they could rise to the occasion when they were so afraid of sinking. Although they had dragged their helmets back and forth to the barracks, they hadn't realized how awkward they were until they had strapped them onto their waterproof uniforms. Tails did not like the fact that he couldn't reach through the helmet to tie up his bangs, in case she needed to invent something on the spur of the moment, a phrase which here means "while traveling through the Gorgonian Grotto." Amy found that it was difficult to see, as the small circular window in her helmet interfered with his glasses. And Sonic was not at all happy about curling up inside his helmet, shutting the tiny door, and being carried by his brother as if he were a volleyball instead of a young boy

When they had put their uniforms on just a few hours earlier, the three siblings thought that the waterproof stilts had fit them like a glove. But now, as they followed Captain Charmy Widdershins out of the Main Hall and down the damp and dripping corridor, the children feared that the uniforms fit more like an anchor, dragging them down to the depths of the sea.

"Don't worry," Fiona said, as though she were reading the Hedges' minds. She gave the siblings a small smile from behind her diving helmet. "I assure you that these suits are completely safe – safe, but uncomfortable."

"As long as we can breathe," Tails said, "I don't care how uncomfortable they are."

"Of course you'll be able to breathe!" the captain said. "Aye! The oxygen systems in your helmets provide plenty of air for a short journey! Of course, if there's any opportunity to remove your helmets, you should do so! Aye! That way the system can recharge itself, and you'll have more air."

"Where would we find an opportunity to remove our helmets in an underwater cave?" Amy asked.

"Who knows?" Captain Charmy Widdershins said. "Aye! You'll be in uncharted waters. I wish I could go myself! Aye! But the grotto has become too narrow!"

"Hewenkella," Sonic said. Her voice was muffled inside the helmet, and it was difficult for even her siblings to know what she was saying. "I think my sister is curious about how we'll be able to see our way," Tails said. "Does the _Queequeg_ have any waterproof flashlights?"

"Flashlights won't help you," the captain replied. "Aye! It's too dark! Aye! But you won't need to see your way. Aye! If Amy's calculations are correct, the tide will just push you along. Aye! You won't even have to swim! You can just sit there, and you'll drift right to the sugar bowl!"

"That seems like an awfully passive way to travel," Fiona said.

"Aye!" her stepfather agreed. "It does! But there is no other solution! And we should not hesitate!" He stopped and pointed to his plaque. "He or she who hesitates is lost!" he reminded them.

"It's a little hard not to hesitate," Tails said, "before doing something like this."

"It's not too late to draw straws!" the captain said. "Aye! You don't all have to go together!"

"The three of us prefer not to be separated," Amy said. "We've had too much trouble that way."

"I should think you've had too much trouble in any case!" the captain said. "Aye!"

"The Hedges are right, Stepfather," Fiona said. "This way makes the most sense. We may need Tails' mechanical expertise, or Amy's knowledge. And Sonic's size may come in handy, if the grotto gets even smaller."

"Ulp," Sonic said, which meant something like, "I don't like the idea of drifting by myself in a diving helmet."

"What about you, Fiona?" the captain asked. "Aye! You could stay here with me!"

"My skills might be needed as well," Fiona said quietly, and the Hedges shuddered, trying not to think about the _Medusoid Mycelium_ and its poisonous spores.

"Aye!" Captain Charmy Widdershins admitted, and smoothed his mustache with one gloved finger. "Well, I'm going to tell V.F.D. all about this! Aye! All four of you volunteers will receive citations for bravery!"

The Hedges looked at one another as best they could through the small circular windows. A citation for bravery is nothing more than a piece of paper stating that you have been courageous at some time, and such citations have not been known to be very useful when confronted by danger, whether deep underwater, or, as the Hedges would eventually learn, high up in the air. Anyone can write up a citation for bravery, and I have even been known to write one for myself from time to time, in order to keep my spirits up in the middle of a treacherous journey. The three siblings were more interested in surviving their voyage through the Gorgonian Grotto than in receiving a written statement complimenting them on their courage, but they knew Captain

Widdershins was trying to keep their spirits up as he led them down the corridor and into the room where they had first encountered the captain of the _Queequeg_.

"To get into the water," the captain said, "you just climb up that same ladder and give a holler when you're at the hatch. Then I'll activate a valve down here, so the submarine won't flood with water when you open it. Then, as I said, you'll just let the current carry you. You should end up in the same place as the sugar bowl."

"And you still won't tell us why the sugar bowl is important?" Tails couldn't help asking.

"It's not the sugar bowl," Captain Charmy Widdershins said, "it's what's inside it. Aye! I've already said too much! Aye! There are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know! Just think – if you knew about the sugar bowl and you somehow fell into Count Eggman's clutches, there's no telling what he'd do! Aye!"

"But look on the bright side," Espio pointed out. "Whatever terrible things may be lurking in that cave, you won't find Count Eggman. There's no way that octopus submarine could fit!"

"Aye!" the captain agreed. "But we'll watch for him on the sonar, just in case! We'll watch you too! Aye! We'll be right here watching you the entire time! The oxygen systems in your helmets make enough noise that you'll appear as four tiny dots on our screen! Now, off you go! Good luck!"

"We'll be wishing you the best!" Espio said.

The adults gave each of the children a pat on the helmet, and without any further hesitation, off went the Hedge children with Fiona behind them, following the ladder up to the hatch through which they had come aboard. The four volunteers were quiet as they made their way up, until Tails reached up with one hand – the other hand was clutching Sonic's

helmet – and grabbed the handle that opened the hatch.

"We're ready!" he called down, although she did not feel ready at all.

"Aye!" replied the voice of the captain. "I'm activating the valve now! Wait five seconds and then open the hatch! Aye! But don't hesitate! Aye! He who hesitates is lost! Aye! Or she! Aye! Good luck! Aye! Good fortune! Aye! Good journey! Aye! Good-bye!"

There was a distant clanging, presumably the sound of the valve activating, and the four children waited for five seconds, just as you may wish to wait a few seconds yourself, so all thoughts of the Hedges' predicament will vanish from your imagination so that you will not be weeping as you learn several boring facts about the water cycle.

The water cycle, to review, consists of three key phenomena – evaporation, precipitation, and collection – which are all equally boring and thus equally less upsetting than what happened to the Hedges when Tails opened the hatch and the icy, dark waters of the sea rushed into the passageway. If you were to read what happened to them in the moments that followed, you would find yourself unable to sleep as you wept into your pillow and pictured the children all alone in that grim grotto, drifting slowly to the end of the cavern, and yet if you read about the water cycle you would find yourself unable to stay awake, due to the boring description of the process by which water is distributed around the world, and so as a courtesy to you I will continue this book in a way that is best for all concerned.

The water cycle consists of three phenomena – evaporation, precipitation, and collection- which are the three phenomena that make up what is known as "the water cycle." Evaporation, the first of these phenomena, is the process of water turning into vapor and eventually forming clouds, such as those found in cloudy skies, or on cloudy days, or even cloudy nights. These clouds are formed by a phenomenon known as "evaporation," which is the first of three phenomena that make up the water cycle. Evaporation, the first of these three, is simply a term for a

process by which water turns into vapor and eventually forms clouds. Clouds can be recognized by their appearance, usually on cloudy days or nights, when they can be seen in cloudy skies. The name for the process by which clouds are formed – by water, which turns into vapor and becomes part of the formation known as "clouds" – is "evaporation," the first phenomenon in the three phenomena that make up the cycle of water, otherwise known as "the water cycle," and surely you must be asleep by now and so can be spared the horrifying details of the Hedges' journey.

The instant Tails opened the hatch, the passageway flooded with water, and the children drifted out of the submarine and into the blackness of the Gorgonian Grotto. The Hedges knew, of course, that the _Queequeg_ had entered an underwater cave, but still they were unprepared for how very dark and cold it was. Sunlight had not reached the waters of the grotto for quite some time – not since Anwhistle Aquatics was still up and running, a phrase which here means "not destroyed under suspicious circumstances" – and the water felt like a freezing black glove, encircling the children with its chilly fingers.

As Amy and Tails had predicted after studying the tidal charts, the currents of the cave carried the youngsters away from the submarine, but in the darkness it was impossible to see how fast or far they were going. Within moments the four volunteers lost sight of the _Queequeg_ , and then of one another.

Had the grotto been equipped with some sort of lighting system, as it once had, the children could have seen a number of things. They might have noticed the mosaic on the grotto floor – thousands and thousands of colorful tiles, depicting noble events from the early history of a secret organization, and portraits of famous writers, scientists, artists, musicians, Philosophers, and chefs who had inspired the organization 's members. They might have seen an enormous, rusted pumping machine, which was able to drain the entire grotto, or flood it with seawater again, in mere minutes. They might have gazed upward and seen the sharp

angles of various Vertical Flame Diversions and other secret passageways that once led all the way up to the marine research center and rhetorical advice service, or even spotted the person who was using one of the passageways now, and probably for the last time, as she made her difficult and dark way toward the _Queequeg_. But instead, all the children could see through their small circular windows was darkness.

The Hedges had seen darkness before, of course – darkness in secret passageways and tunnels, darkness in abandoned buildings and empty streets, darkness in the eyes of wicked people, and even darkness in other caves. But never before had the orphans felt so completely in the dark as they did now. They did not know where they were, although once Tails felt, very briefly, his feet brush up against something very smooth, like a tile fitted firmly against the ground. They could not tell where they were going, although after a while Amy had a suspicion that the current had spun her so he was traveling upside down. And they could not tell when they would arrive, although from time to time Sonic saw, through his diving helmet, a tiny dot of light, much like the tiny dots Captain Charmy Widdershins said they would appear as on the sonar screen of his submarine.

The Hedges drifted along in cold, dark silence, feeling afraid and confused and strangely lonely, and when their journey finally ended, it was so sudden it felt as if they had fallen into a deep, deep sleep, as deep and dark as the cavern itself, and now were being jolted awake.

At first, it sounded as if a bushel of broken glass were raining down on the children, but then the children realized they had drifted to the surface of the water, and in one curling, fluid motion, the tide pushed them onto something that felt like a beach, and the three siblings found themselves crawling on a slope of dark, wet sand.

"Amy?" Tails called through his helmet. "Are you there? What's happened?"

"I don't know," Amy replied. She could just barely see her brother

crawling alongside her. "We couldn't have reached the surface of the sea

– we were very, very deep. Is Sonic with you?" "Yes," Sonic said, from inside his helmet. "Fiona?"

"I'm here," came the voice of the mycologist. "But where are we? How can we still be below the surface of the sea, without any water around us?"

"I'm not sure," Amy said, "but it must be possible. After all, a submarine can be below the sea and stay dry."

"Are we on another submarine?" Tails asked.

"I dunno," Sonic said, and frowned in his helmet. "Look!"

The elder Hedges looked, although it took them a few moments to realize what Sonic was talking about, as they could not see what direction their sister was pointing. But in a moment they saw two small lights, a short distance from where the volunteers were crawling.

Hesitantly, they stood up – except for Sonic, who remained curled up in her helmet – and saw that the lights were coming from a place many lights come from: lamps.

A short distance away, standing against the wall, were three floorlamps, each with a letter on its shade. The first lamp had a large V, and the second had an F. The third floorlamp had burnt out, and it was too dim to read the shade, but the children knew, of course, that it must have had a D.

"What is this place?" Fiona asked, but as the children stepped closer they could see what kind of place it was.

As they had suspected, the currents of the Gorgonian Grotto had carried them to a beach, but it was a beach contained in a narrow room. The youngsters stood at the top of the slope of sand and peered at this small, dim room, with smooth tiled walls that looked damp and slippery, and a

sand floor covered in an assortment of small objects, some in piles and some half-buried in the sand. The children could see bottles, some still with their corks and caps, and some cans still intact from their journey. There were a few books, their pages bloated as if soaked in water, and a few small cases that looked locked. There was a roller skate, turned upside down, and a deck of cards sitting in two piles, as if someone were about to shuffle them. Here and there were a few pens, sticking out of the sand like porcupine quills, and there were many more objects the children could not identify in the gloom.

"Where are we?" Fiona asked. "Why isn't this place full of water?"

Amy looked up, but could not see past a few feet. "This must be a passage of some sort," Amy said, "straight up to dry land – an island, maybe, or maybe it curves to the shore."

"Anwhistle Aquatics," Tails said thoughtfully. "We must be underneath its ruins."

"Oxo?" Sonic asked, which meant "Does that mean we can breathe without our helmets?"

"I think so," Amy said, and then carefully removed her helmet, an action for which I would have given her a citation for bravery. "Yes," she said. "We can breathe. Everybody take off their helmets – that way, our oxygen systems will recharge."

"But what is this place?" Fiona asked again, removing her helmet. "Why would anybody build a room way down here?"

"It looks like it's been abandoned," Tails said. "It's full of junk."

"Someone must come to change the light-bulbs," Amy pointed out. "Besides, all this junk was washed up here by the tide, like us."

"And like sugar bowl," Sonic said.

"Of course," Fiona said, looking down at the objects in the sand. "It

must be here someplace."

"Let's find it and get out of here," Tails said. "I don't like this place." "Mission," Sonic said, which meant "Once we find the sugar bowl, our

work here is done."

"Not quite," Amy said. "We'll still have to return to the _Queequeg_ against the current, I might add. Looking for the sugar bowl is only half the battle."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and the four volunteers spread out and began to examine the objects in the sand. Saying that something is half the battle is like saying something is half a sandwich, because it is dangerous to announce that something is half the battle when the much more difficult part might still be waiting in the wings, a phrase which here means "coming up more quickly than you'd like." You might think learning how to boil water is half the battle, only to learn that making a poached egg is much trickier than you thought and that the entire battle would be much more difficult and dangerous than you ever would have imagined

The Hedges and their mycologist friend thought that looking for the sugar bowl was half the battle, but I'm sorry to tell you that they were wrong, and it is lucky that you fell asleep earlier, during my description of the water cycle, so you will not learn about the other half of the Hedges' battle, and the ghastly poison they would end up battling not long after their search through the sand.

"I've found a box of rubber bands," Tails said, after a few minutes, "and a doorknob, two mattress springs, half a bottle of vinegar, and a paring knife, but no sugar bowl."

"I've found an earring, a broken clipboard, a ruined book of poetry, half a stapler, and three swizzle sticks," Amy said, "but no sugar bowl."

"Three can soup," Sonic said, "jar peanut butter, box crackers, pesto,

wasabi, lo mein. But nadasuchre."

"This is harder than I thought," Tails said. "What have you found, Fiona?" Fiona did not answer. "Fiona?" Tails asked again, and the Hedges turned to look at her.

But the mycologist was not looking at the siblings. She was looking past them, and her eyes were wide with fear behind her triangular glasses.

"Fiona?" Tails said, sounding a bit worried. "What have you found?"

Fiona swallowed, and pointed back down at the slope of sand. "Mycelium," she said finally, in a faint whisper, and the Hedges turned to see that she had spoken the truth. Sprouting out of the sand, quickly and silently, were the stalks and caps of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , the fungus Fiona had described back on the _Queequeg_.

The invisible threads of the mycelium, according to her mycological book, waxed and waned, and had been waning when the volunteers drifted ashore, which meant that the mushrooms had been hiding underground when the children had arrived at this strange room. But now, as time passed, they were waxing, and sprouting up all over the beach and even along the smooth, tiled walls.

At first just a handful were visible – each one a dark, gray color, with black splotches on the caps as if they were spattered with ink – and then more and more, like a silent, deadly crowd that had gathered on the beach and was staring blindly at the terrified children. The mushrooms only ventured halfway up the slope of sand, so it seemed that the poisonous fungus was not going to engulf them – not yet, anyway. But as the mycelium continued to wax, the entire beach sprouted in sinister mushrooms, and until it waned the Hedges had to huddle on the sand, in the light of the floorlamps, and stare back at the venomous mycological crowd.

More and more mushrooms appeared, crowding the strange shore and

piling up on top of one another as if they were pushing and shoving to get a good look at the trapped and frightened children.

Looking for the sugar bowl may have been half the battle, but now the Hedge orphans were trapped, and that half was much, much more troubling.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ **Seven**

 _The_ word "lousy," like the word "volunteer," the word "fire," the word "department," and many other words found in dictionaries and other important documents, has a number of different definitions depending on the exact circumstances in which it is used. There is the common definition of the word "lousy," meaning "bad," and this definition of "lousy" has described many things in my history of the Hedge orphans, from the sinister smells of Lousy Lane, along which the children traveled long ago, to their lousy journey up and down the Mortmain Mountains in search of the V.F.D. headquarters. There is the medical definition of the word "lousy," meaning "infested with lice," and this definition of "lousy" has not appeared in my work at all, although as Count Eggman's hygiene gets worse and worse I may find occasion to use it. And then there is a somewhat obscure definition of the word "lousy," meaning "abundantly supplied," the way Count Eggman is lousy with treacherous plans, or the _Queequeg_ is lousy with metal pipes, or the entire world is lousy with unfathomable secrets, and it is this definition that the Hedge orphans pondered, as they huddled with Fiona underneath the mysterious floorlamps of the Gorgonian Grotto, and watched more and more mushrooms sprout from the sand.

As their surroundings became lousy with the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , the children thought of all the other things in their lives with which they were abundantly supplied. The children's lives were lousy with mystery, from the mysteries of V.F.D. to the mysteries of their own futures, with each mystery crowding the others like the stalks and caps of the poisonous fungi. Their lives were lousy with danger, from the dangers they had

encountered above mountains and underneath buildings, to the dangers they had faced inside the city and out in the hinterlands, from the dangers of villainous people to the dangers of kind people who did not know any better. And their lives were lousy with lousiness, from terrible people to horrible meals, from terrifying locations to horrifying circumstances, and from dreadful inconveniences to inconvenient dreads, so that it seemed that their lives would always be lousy, lousy with lousy days and lousy with lousy nights, even if all of the lousy things with which their lives were lousy became less lousy, and less lousy with lousiness, over the lousy course of each lousy-with-lousiness moment, and with each new lousy mushroom, the cave lousier and lousier with lousiness, it was almost too much for the Hedge orphans to hear.

"Lousy," Sonic said.

"This is not good news," Tails agreed. "Fiona, do you think we've been poisoned already?"

"No," Fiona said firmly. "The spores shouldn't reach us here. As long as we stay here at the far end of the cavern, and the mushrooms don't advance any further, we should be safe."

"It looks like they've stopped advancing," Tails said, pointing at the line of gray mushrooms, and the other volunteers saw that she was right. There were still new mushrooms popping up, but the fungus didn't seem to be getting any closer to the four children.

"I guess the mycelium has only grown that far," Fiona said. "We're very lucky."

"I don't feel very lucky," Amy said. "I feel trapped. How will we get out of here?"

"There's only one way," Tails said. "The only path back to the

 _Queequeg_ leads through those mushrooms."

"If we go through the mushrooms," Fiona said, "we'll most likely be

poisoned. One spore could easily slip through our suits." "Antidote?" Sonic asked.

"I might find the recipe for a cure," Fiona replied, "someplace in my mycological library. But we don't want to take that chance. We'll have to exit another way."

For a moment, all four children looked up, into the blackness of the passage above their heads. Tails frowned, and put one hand on the damp and slippery tiles of the wall. With the other hand he reached into the waterproof pocket of his uniform, and drew out a ribbon to tie up his bangs.

"Can we go out that way?" Amy asked. "Can you invent something to help us climb up that passageway?"

"Tingamebob," Sonic said, which meant "There's plenty of materials here in the sand."

"Materials aren't the problem," Tails said, and peered up into the blackness. "We're far below the surface of the water. It must be miles and miles to the surface. Even the best climbing device would wear out over the journey, and if it did we'd fall all the way down."

"But someone must use that passageway, Amy said. "Otherwise it wouldn't have been built."

"It doesn't matter," Fiona said. "We can't go out that way. We need to get to the _Queequeg_. Otherwise, my stepfather will wonder what's become of us. Eventually he'd put on his diving helmet and go investigate..."

"And the tide would carry him right into the poisonous fungus," Amy finished. "Fiona's right. Even if we could climb all the way up, it'd be the wrong way to go."

"But what else can we do?" Tails said, his voice rising. "We can't

spend the rest of our lives in this miserable place!"

Fiona looked at the mushrooms and sighed. " _Mushroom Minutiae_ said that this fungus waxes and wanes. Right now it's waxing. We'll have to wait until it wanes again, and then run quickly over the sand and swim back down to the submarine."

"But how long will it be until it starts waning?" Amy said. "I don't know," Fiona admitted. "It could be just a few minutes, or a few hours. It could even be a few days."

"A few days?" Tails said. "In a few days your stepfather will give up on us! In a few days we'll miss the V.F.D. gathering! We can't wait a few days!"

"It's our only choice," Amy said, putting a comforting hand on Tails' shoulder. "We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can find ourselves poisoned."

"That's not a choice at all," Tails replied bitterly.

"It's a Hobson's choice," Amy said. "Remember?"

The eldest Hedge looked down at his sister and gave her a small smile. "Of Course I remember," he said.

"Mamasan," Sonic said. His siblings looked down at him and Tails picked him up in his arms.

"Who's Hobson?" Fiona asked. "What was his choice?"

Amy smiled. "Thomas Hobson lived in Britain in the seventeenth century," he said. "He was in charge of a stable, and according to legend, he always told his customers they had a choice: they could take the horse closest to the door, or no horse at all."

"That's not really a choice," Fiona said.

Tails smiled. "Precisely," she said. "A Hobson 's choice is something

that's not a choice at all. It's an expression our mother used to use. She'd say, 'I'll give you a Hobson's choice, Tails – you can clean your room or I will stand in the doorway and sing your least favorite song over and over.' "

Fiona grinned. "What was your least favorite song?" she asked.

" 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat,' " Tails said. "I hate the part about life being but a dream."

"She'd offer me the Hobson's choice of doing the dishes or reading the poetry of Edgar Guest," Amy said. "He's my absolute least favorite poet."

"Bath or pink clothes," Sonic said.

"Did your mother always joke around like that?" Fiona asked. "Mine used to get awfully mad if I didn't clean my room."

"Our mother would get mad, too," Amy said. "Remember, Tails, when we left the window of the library open, and that night it rained?"

"She really flew off the handle," Tails said, using a phrase which here means "became extremely angry."

"We spoiled an atlas that she said was irreplaceable."

"You should have heard her yell," Amy said. "Our father came down from his study to see what was the matter."

"And then he started yelling, too," Tails said, and the Hedges paused and looked at one another uncomfortably.

Everyone yells, of course, from time to time, but the Hedge children did not like to think about their parents yelling, particularly now that they were no longer around to apologize or explain themselves. It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable.

To the Hedges it felt almost as if they had drawn a line after their parents died – a secret line in their memories, separating all the wonderful things about the Hedge parents from the things that perhaps were not quite so wonderful. Since the fire, whenever they thought of their parents, the Hedges never stepped over this secret line, preferring to ponder the best moments the family had together rather than any of the times when they had fought, or been unfair or selfish.

But now, suddenly, in the gloom of the Gorgonian Grotto, the siblings had stumbled across that line and found themselves thinking of that angry afternoon in the library, and in moments other angry afternoons and evenings had occurred to them until their brains were lousy with memories of all stripes, a phrase which here means "both good and bad."

It gave the siblings a queasy feeling to cross this line in their memories, and admit that their parents were sometimes difficult, and it made them feel all the queasier to realize they could not step back, and pretend they had never remembered these less-than-perfect moments, any more than they could step back in time, and once again find themselves safe in the Hedge home, before fire and Count Eggman had appeared in their lives.

"My brother used to get angry, too," Fiona said. "Before he disappeared, he would have awful fights with my stepfather – late at night, when they thought I was asleep."

"Your stepfather didn't mention that," Tails said. "He said your brother was a charming man."

"Maybe he only remembers the charming parts," Fiona replied. "Maybe he doesn't want to remember everything. Maybe he wants to keep those parts secret."

"Do you think your stepfather knew about this place?" Amy asked, looking around the eerie room. "He mentioned that we might find a place

to take off our diving helmets, remember? It seemed strange at the time."

"I don't know," Fiona said. "Maybe that's another secret he was keeping."

"Like the sugar bowl," Tails said. "Speaking which," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "We should keep looking for the sugar bowl."

"It must be here someplace," Fiona agreed, "and besides, we need some way to pass the time until the fungus wanes. Everyone should spread out, and give a shout if you find the sugar bowl."

The Hedges nodded in agreement, and the four volunteers took distant positions on the sand, taking care not to step any closer to the _Medusoid Mycelium_. For the next few hours, they dug through the sand floor of the grotto and examined what they found by the light of the two floorlamps. Each layer of sand uncovered several items of interest, but no matter how many objects the children encountered, no one gave a shout.

Tails found a butter dish, a length of electrical wire, and an odd, square stone with messages carved in three languages, but not what he was looking for, and so the eldest Hedge remained silent. Amy found a box of toothpicks, a small hand puppet, and a ring made of dull metal, but not what she had come to the cave to find, and so the middle Hedge merely sighed. And Sonic found two cloth napkins, a broken telephone receiver, and a fancy wineglass filled with holes, but when he finally opened his mouth to speak, the youngest Hedge merely said, "Snack!" which meant something like, "Why don't we stop for a bite to eat?" and quickly opened the crackers and peanut butter he had found.

"Thanks, Sonic," Fiona said, taking a cracker spread with peanut

butter. "I must say, Hedges, I'm getting frustrated. My hands ache from all that digging, but there's no sign of the sugar bowl."

"I'm beginning to think this is a fool's errand," Tails said, using a phrase which here means "errand performed by a fool."

"We journeyed all the way down here to find a crucial item, and instead it seems like we're finding nothing but junk. It's a waste of time."

"Not necessarily," Amy said, eating a cracker and looking at the items he had found. "We may not have found the sugar bowl, but I think we did find some crucial information."

"What do you mean?" Tails said.

"Look at this," Amy said, and held up a book she had taken from the sand. "It's a collection of poetry, and most of it is too damp to read. But look at the title page." The middle Hedge held open the book so the other volunteers could see.

"Versed Furtive Disclosure," Tails read out loud. "V.F.D.," Sonic said.

"Yes," Amy said. " 'Furtive' means 'secretive,' and 'disclosure' means 'to reveal something.' I think V.F.D. may have hidden things here – not just the sugar bowl, but other secrets."

"That would make sense," Tails said. "This grotto is a bit like a secret passageway – like the one we found underneath our home, or the one Shadow found underneath his."

Fiona nodded, and began to search through a pile of items she had taken from the sand. "I found an envelope earlier," she said, "but I didn't think to open it. I was too busy concentrating on the sugar bowl."

"Punctilio," Sonic said, holding up a torn and tattered sheet of newspaper. The children could see the letters "V.F.D." circled in a

headline.

"I'm too exhausted to dig anymore," Amy said. "Let's spend some time reading instead. Amy and I, you can examine that poetry book and the newspaper. Fiona, you can see if there's anything worthwhile in that envelope."

"Me?" asked Sonic, whose reading skills were still developing.

"Why don't you cook us something, Sonic," Amy suggested with a smile. "Those crackers just whetted my appetite."

"Pronto," the youngest Hedge promised, looking at the foodstuffs she had found in the sand, most of which were sealed up tight.

The phrase "whet my appetite," as you probably know, refers to one's hunger being awakened, and usually it refers to food. The Hedges had lost track of time while searching through the sand of the grotto, and the snack Sonic prepared made them realize just how long it had been since they had eaten. But another appetite had been whetted for the Hedges as well – a hunger for secrets, and for information that might help them.

As Sonic began to prepare a meal for her fellow volunteers, Tails and Amy looked over the materials they had found, devouring whatever information seemed important, and Fiona did the same thing, leaning up against the tiled wall of the cavern as she examined the contents of the envelope she had found.

The volunteers' hunger for information was almost as fierce as their hunger for food, and after a lengthy period of studying and note taking, whisking and mixing, the four children could not say whether they were more eager to hear about the others' research or to eat the meal Sonic had prepared.

"What is this?" Tails asked his brother, peering into the fishbowl Sonic was using as a serving dish.

"Pesto lo mein," Sonic explained.

"What my brother means," Amy said, "is that she found a package of soft Chinese noodles, which she tossed with an Italian basil sauce she got out of a jar."

"That's quite an international combination," Fiona said.

"Hobson," Sonic said, which meant "I didn't have much choice, given our surroundings," and then held up another item he had found. "Wasabi?"

"What's wasabi?" Tails asked.

"It's a Japanese condiment," Amy said. "It's very spicy, and often served with fish."

"Why don't we save the wasabi, Sonic," Amy said, taking the tin of wasabi and putting it in the pocket of her uniform. "We'll take it back to the _Queequeg_ and you can use it in a seafood recipe."

Sonic nodded in agreement, and passed the fishbowl to her siblings. "Utensi," she said.

"We can use these swizzle sticks as chopsticks," Amy said. "We'll have to take turns, and whoever isn't eating can tell us what they've discovered. Here, Fiona, why don't you go first?"

"Thanks," Fiona said, taking the swizzle sticks gratefully. "I'm quite hungry. Did you learn anything from that poetry book?"

"Not as much as I would have liked," Tails said. "Most of the pages were soaked from their journey, and so I couldn't read much. But we believe we've learned a new code: Verse Fluctuation Declaration. It's a way to communicate by substituting words in poems."

"It's a bit tricky," Amy said, opening his commonplace book, in which he'd copied the information. "The book

uses a poem called 'My Last Duchess,' by Robert Browning, as an example."

"I've read that," Fiona said, twirling a few noodles around a swizzle stick to get them into her mouth. "It's a very creepy story about a man who murders his wife."

"Right," Amy said. "But if a volunteer used the name of the poem in a coded communication, the title might be 'My Last Wife' instead of 'My Last Duchess,' by the poet 'Obert Browning' instead of Robert Browning."

"What purpose would that serve?" Tails said. "The volunteer reading it would notice the mistake," Amy said. "The changing of certain words or letters is a kind of fluctuation. If you fixed the fluctuations in the poem, you'd receive the message."

"Duchess R?" Fiona asked. "What kind of message is that?"

"I'm not sure," Amy admitted. "The next page in the book is missing." "Do you think the missing page is a code, too?" Tails asked.

Amy shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Codes are nothing more than a way of talking so that some people understand and other people don't. Remember when we talked to Shadow in the cave, with all the other Snow Scouts listening?"

"Yes," Tails said. "We used words that began with V, F, and D, so that we knew we were all on the same side."

"Maybe we should have a code ourselves," Fiona said, "so that we can communicate if we run into trouble."

"That's a good idea," Amy said. "What should we use as code words?" "Food," Sonic suggested.

"Perfect," Tails said. "We'll draw up a list of foods and what they mean

in our code. We'll bring them up in conversation, and our enemies will never suspect that we're actually communicating."

"And our enemies could be around any corner," Fiona said, handing the fishbowl of lo mein to Tails and picking up the envelope she had found. "Inside this envelope was a letter. Normally I don't like to read other people's mail, but it seems unlikely that this letter will ever reach Gregor Anwhistle."

"Gregor Anwhistle?" Tails asked. "He's the man who founded the research center. Who was writing to him?"

"A woman named Kit," Fiona said. "I think it's Kit Snicker – Jacques's sister."

"Of course," Amy said. "Your stepfather said she was a noble woman who helped build the _Queequeg_."

"According to her letter," Fiona said, "Gregor Anwhistle was involved in something called a 'schism.' What's that?"

"It was a big conflict within V.F.D.," Amy said. "Shadow told us a little bit about it."

"Everybody chose sides," Tails recalled, "and now the organization is in chaos. Which side was Gregor on?"

"I don't know," Fiona said, frowning. "Some of this letter is in code, and some of it was in water. I can't understand all of it, but it sounds like Gregor was involved with something called Volatile Fungus Deportation."

" 'Volatile' means 'unstable,' or 'likely to cause trouble,' " Amy said. " 'Fungus,' of course, means 'mushrooms,' and 'deportation' means 'moving something from one place to another.' Who was moving unstable mushrooms?"

"V.F.D.," Fiona replied. "During the schism, Gregor thought the

 _Medusoid Mycelium_ might be useful."

"The _Medusoid Mycelium_?" Tails said, looking nervously at the silent, gray mushrooms that still lined the entrance to the small, tiled room, their black splotches looking particularly eerie in the dim light. "I can't imagine thinking that such deadly things could be useful."

"Listen to what Kit wrote about it," Fiona said. " 'The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium's destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire."

Amy was busily copying Kit Snicket's letter into his commonplace book. "Gregor was growing those mushrooms," he said, "to use on enemies of V.F.D."

"He was going to poison people?" Tails asked.

"Villainous people," Fiona replied, "but Kit Snicket thought that using poisonous mushrooms was equally villainous. They were working on a way to weaken the poison, in a factory on Lousy Lane. But the writer of this letter still thought that Volatile Fungus Deportation was too dangerous, and she warned Gregor that if he wasn't careful, the mycelium would poison the entire research center."

"And now the center is gone," Tails said, "and the mycelium remains. Something went very wrong, right here where we're sitting."

"I still don't understand it," Amy said. "Was Gregor a villain?"

"I think he was volatile," Fiona said, "like the _Medusoid Mycelium_. And the writer of this letter says that if you cultivate something volatile, then you're playing with fire."

Tails shuddered, stopped eating her pesto lo mein, and put down the

fishbowl.

"Playing with fire," of course, is an expression that refers to any dangerous or risky activity, such as writing a letter to a volatile person, or journeying through a dark cave filled with a poisonous fungus in order to search for an object that was taken away quite some time before, and the Hedges did not like to think about the fire they were playing with, or the fires that had already been played with in this damp and mysterious room. For a moment, nobody spoke, and the Hedges gazed at the stalks and caps of the deadly mushrooms, wondering what had gone wrong with Anwhistle Aquatics. They wondered how the schism began. And they wondered about all of the mysterious and villainous things that seemed to surround the three orphans, drawing closer and closer as their woeful lives went on and on, and if such mysteries would ever be solved and if such villains ever defeated.

"Wane," Sonic said suddenly, and the children saw it was true.

The crowd of mushrooms seemed to be just a bit smaller, and here and there they saw a stalk and cap disappear back into the sand, as if the poisonous fungus had decided to implement an alternate strategy, a phrase which here means "would terrorize the Hedges in another way."

"Sonic's right," Amy said with relief. "The _Medusoid Mycelium_ is waning. Soon it'll be safe enough to return to the _Queequeg_."

"It must be a fairly short cycle," Fiona said, making a note in her commonplace book. "How long do you think we've been here?"

"All night, at least," Tails said, unfolding the sheet of newspaper Sonic had found. "It's lucky we found all these materials, otherwise we would have been quite bored."

"My brother always had a deck of cards with him," Fiona remembered, "in case he was stuck in a boring situation. He invented this card game

called Fernald's Folly, and we used to play it together whenever we had a long wait."

"Fernald?" Amy asked. "Was that your brother's name?" "Yes," Fiona said. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just curious," she said, hurriedly tucking the newspaper into the pocket of her uniform, there was just enouth room for her commonplace book and the can of wasabi.

"Aren't you going to tell us what was in the newspaper?" Tails asked. "I saw the headline said V.F.D."

"I didn't learn anything," Amy said. "The article was too blurred to read."

"Hmmm," Sonic said, and gave his sister a sly look. The youngest Hedge had known Amy since she was born, of course, and found it quite easy to tell when she was lying.

Amy looked back at Sonic, and then at Tails, and shook her head, very, very slightly. "Why don't we get ready to go?" the middle Hedge suggested. "By the time we pack up these documents and put on our diving helmets, the fungus will have waned completely."

"You're right," Fiona said. "Here, Sonic, I'll help you get into your helmet. It's the least I can do after you cooked such a delicious meal."

"Shivalrush," Sonic said, which meant "'That's very kind of you," and although Fiona had not known Sonic very long, she understood what the youngest Hedge had said, more or less, and smiled at all three of the Hedge siblings.

As the four volunteers suited up – a phrase which here means "prepared their helmets for an underwater journey" – the Hedge children felt as if Fiona fit them like a glove – as a friend, or possibly something more. It felt as if Fiona and the Hedges were part of the

same team, or the same organization, trying to solve the same mysteries and defeat the sane villains. It felt that way to the older and younger Hedges, anyway. Only Amy felt as if their friendship were more volatile, as if Fiona fit her like the wrong glove, or as if their friendship had a tiny flaw – a flaw that might turn into a schism.

As Amy put the diving helmet over her head, and made sure that the zipper of the uniform was zipped tight over the portrait of Herman Melville, she heard the slight rustle of the newspaper clipping in her pocket and frowned. She kept frowning as the last of the mushrooms disappeared into the sand, and the four children stepped carefully back into the icy dark water. Because they were traveling against the tide, the volunteers had decided to hold hands, so they would not lose track of one another as they returned to the _Queequeg_ , and as their dark journey began, Amy thought of the dangerous and risky secret concealed in her pocket and realized, as Tails led the way back to the submarine, with Fiona holding Amy's hand, and Tails holding Fiona's, and Sonic, curled in his helmet, tucked tightly under Tails' arm, that even while swimming in the icy depths of the ocean, the Hedges were playing with fire.

The sinister information in the newspaper clipping was like a tiny spore, blossoming in the small, enclosed space of Amy's pocket – like a spore of the deadly _Medusoid Mycelium_ , which at that very moment was blossoming in the small, enclosed space of a diving helmet worn by one of the Hedge orphans.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Eight**

 _The_ water cycle consists of three phenomena: evaporation, precipitation, and collection, three phenomena known collectively as the three phenomena of what is referred to as "the water cycle." The second of these phenomena – precipitation – is the process by which vapor turns into water and falls as rain, something you might notice during a rainfall or by going outdoors on a rainy morning, afternoon, evening, or night.

This falling water you notice is known as "rain," which is the result of the phenomenon of precipitation, one of the three phenomena that comprise the water cycle. Of these three phenomena, precipitation is regarded as the second one, particularly if a list of the three phenomena places precipitation in the middle, or second, spot on the list. "Precipitation" is quite simply a term for the transformation of vapor into water, which then falls as rain – something you might encounter if you were to step outside during a rainstorm. Rain consists of water, which was formerly vapor but underwent the process known as "precipitation," one of the three phenomena in the water cycle, and by now this tedious description must have put you back to sleep, so you may avoid the gruesome details of my account of Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge as they made their way through the Gorgonian Grotto back to the _Queequeg_.

The Hedge orphans knew that something was wrong the moment they arrived at the submarine, knocked on the metal hatch, and heard no answer from the captain inside. It had been a dark and cold journey back through the cave, made all the more difficult by the fact that they were swimming against the tide, rather than letting the current carry them along.

Tails, who was leading the way, swept one arm in front of him from side to side, fearful that he would miss the _Queequeg_ altogether, or brush his hand against something sinister lurking in the cavern. Fiona trembled throughout the entire journey, and Tails could feel her nervous fingers twitching as she held her hand. And Sonic tried not to panic inside her diving helmet, as her siblings' swim made her bounce up and down in the blackness. The youngest Hedge could not see a single light through the small round window in her helmet, but as with all of the Hedges, he concentrated on arriving safely, and the thought of returning to the _Queequeg_ felt like a small light glowing in the gloom of the grotto.

Soon, the Hedges thought, they would hear the booming "Aye!" of Captain Charmy Widdershins as he welcomed them back from their mission.

Perhaps Espio would have cooked them a nice hot meal, even without the culinary assistance of Sonic. And perhaps the telegram device would have received another Volunteer Factual Dispatch, one that might help them find the sugar bowl so their entire journey would not have been a fool's errand.

But when Tails led them to the hatch, they found no sign that anyone aboard the _Queequeg_ was welcoming them. After knocking for several minutes, the worried children had to open the hatch by themselves, a difficult task in the dark, and enter the passageway, quickly closing the hatch behind them. They grew more worried as they discovered that nobody had activated the hatch, so quite a bit of water flowed into the passageway and poured down to the room in which the Hedges had first met Captain Charmy Widdershins. They could hear the water splashing on the submarine floor as they began their climb down, and strained to hear the captain shouting "Aye! What a mess!" or "Aye! The valve is broken!" or even something optimistic from Espio, like "Look on the bright side – it's like having a wading pool!"

"Captain Charmy Widdershins?" Tails called, his voice muffled through her

helmet.

"Stepfather?" Fiona called, her voice muffled through hers. "Espio?" Amy called.

"Crew?" Sonic called.

Nobody answered these calls, and nobody commented on the water from the passageway, and when the volunteers reached the end of the passageway and lowered themselves into the small, dim room, they found nobody there to meet them.

"Stepfather?" Fiona called again, but they heard only the movement of the water as it settled into a large puddle on the floor. Without bothering to take off their helmets, the four children splashed through the water and hurried down the hallway, past the plaque with the captain's personal Philosophy engraved on it, until they reached the Main Hall.

The room was just as enormous as ever, of course, with all of the bewildering pipes, panels, and warning signs, although it seemed as if the place had been tidied up a bit, and there was now a tiny hit of decoration near the wooden table where the Hedges had eaten Sonny's chowder and planned their journey through the Gorgonian Grotto. Tied to two chairs were small blue balloons that hovered in the air, one was at the celling, and each balloon had a letter printed on its surface in thick, black ink. The first balloon that was on the celling was pressingly read "V," the second read "F," and the third read "D."

"V.F.D.," Tails said. "Do you think it's a code?"

"I'm not interested in codes at the moment," Fiona said, her voice tense and echoey inside her helmet. "I want to find my crewmates. Look around, everyone."

The Hedges looked around the room, but it seemed as empty and

lonely as the grotto. Without the enormous presence of Captain Charmy Widdershins – "enormous presence" is a phrase which here means "large physical size, combined with a vibrant personality and loud voice" – the Main Hall seemed utterly deserted.

"Maybe they're in the kitchen," Amy said, although it sounded like he didn't believe it himself, "or napping in the barracks."

"They wouldn't have napped," Tails said. "They said they'd be watching us the entire time."

Fiona took a step toward the door to the kitchen, but then stopped and looked at the wooden table. "Their helmets are gone," she said. "Both Espio and my stepfather were keeping their diving helmets on the table, in case of an emergency." She ran her hand along the table, as if she could make the helmets reappear. "They're gone," she said. "They've left the _Queequeg_."

"I can't believe that," Amy said, shaking his head. "They knew we were traveling through the grotto. They wouldn't abandon their fellow volunteers."

"Maybe they thought we weren't coming back," Fiona said.

"No," Tails said, pointing to a panel on the wall. "They could see us. We were tiny green dots on the sonar detector."

The children looked at the sonar panel, hoping to see dots that might represent their missing crewmates.

"They must have had a very good reason to leave," Fiona said.

"What reason could there be?" Amy said. "No matter what occurred, they would have waited for us."

"No," Fiona said. Sadly, she removed her diving helmet, and the middle Hedge saw she had tears in her eves. "No matter what occurred," she said, "my stepfather wouldn't have hesitated. He or she who

hesitates is..."

"Lost," Tails finished for her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Maybe they didn't go of their own volition," Amy said, using a phrase which here means "by choice."

"Maybe somebody took them."

"Took the crew away," Amy said, "and left behind three balloons?"

"It's a mystery," Tails said, "but I'm sure it's one we can solve. Let's

just take off our helmets, and we can get to work."

Tails nodded, and removed his diving helmet, putting it down on the floor next to Fiona's. Amy removed hers, and then went to open the tiny door of Sonic's helmet, so the youngest Hedge could uncurl herself from the small, enclosed space and join her siblings. But Fiona grabbed Amy's hand before it reached the helmet, and stopped her, pointing through the small round window in Sonic's helmet.

There are many things in this world that are difficult to see. An ice cube in a glass of water, for instance, might pass unnoticed, particularly if the ice cube is small, and the glass of water is ten miles in diameter. A short woman might be difficult to see on a crowded city street, particularly if she has disguised herself as a mailbox, and people keep putting letters in her mouth. And a small, ceramic bowl, with a tight-fitting lid to keep something important inside, might be difficult to find in the laundry room of an enormous hotel, particularly if there were a terrible villain nearby, making you feel nervous and distracted. But there are also things that are difficult to see not because of the size of their surroundings, or a clever disguise, or a treacherous person with a book of matches in his pocket and a fiendish plot in his brain, but because the things are so upsetting to look at, so distressing to believe, that it is as if your eyes refuse to see what is right in front of them. You can glance into a mirror, and not see how old you are growing, or how unattractive your hairstyle

has become, until someone kindly points those things out to you. You can gaze upon a place you once lived, and not see how sinister the neighborhood has become, until you walk a few paces to an ice-cream store and notice that your favorite flavor has been discontinued. And you can stare into the small, round window of a diving helmet, as Tails and Amy did at that moment, and not see the stalks and caps of a terrible gray fungus growing poisonously on the glass, until someone utters its scientific name in a horrified whisper.

"It's the _Medusoid Mycelium_ ," Fiona said, and the two elder Hedges blinked and saw that it was so.

"Oh no," Tails murmured. "Oh no!"

"Get him out!" Amy cried. "Get Sonic out at once, or she'll be poisoned!"

"No!" Fiona said, and snatched the helmet away from the siblings. She put it down on the table as if it were a tureen, a word which here means "a wide, deep dish used for serving stew or soup, instead of a small, terrified boy curled up in a piece of deep-sea equipment."

"The diving helmet can serve as quarantine. If we open it, the fungus will spread. The entire submarine could become a field of mushrooms."

"We can't leave our brother in there!" Tails cried. "The spores will poison him!"

"he's probably been poisoned already," Fiona said quietly. "In a small, enclosed space like that helmet, there's no way she could escape."

"That can't be true," Tails said, taking off his glasses as if refusing to see the horror of their situation. But at that moment their predicament became perfectly clear, as the children heard a small, eerie sound come from the helmet. It reminded Tails and Amy of the fish of the Stricken Stream, struggling to breathe in the ashy, black waters. Sonic was coughing. "Sonic!" Amy shouted into the helmet.

"Malady," Sonic said, which meant "I'm beginning to feel unwell."

"Don't talk, Sonic!" Fiona called through the tiny window of the helmet, and turned to the elder Hedges. "The mycelium has destructive respiratory capabilities," the mycologist explained, walking over to the sideboard. "That's what it said in that letter. Your brother should save his breath. The spores will make it more and more difficult for Sonic to talk, and she'll probably start coughing as the fungus grows inside her. In an hour's time, she won't be able to breathe. It would be fascinating if it weren't so horrible."

"Fascinating?" Amy covered her mouth with her hands and shut her eyes, trying not to imagine what her terrified sister was feeling. "What can we do?" she asked.

"We can make an antidote," Fiona said. "There must be some useful information in my mycological library."

"I'll help," Amy said. "I'm sure I'll find the books difficult to read, but

–"

"No," Fiona said. "I need to be alone to do my research. You and Tails should climb that rope ladder and fire up the engines so we can get out of this cave."

"But we should all do the research!" Tails cried. "We only have one hour, or maybe even less! If the mushrooms grew while we swam back to the _Queequeg_ , then –"

"Then we certainly don't have time to argue," Fiona finished, opening the cabinet and removing a large pile of books. "I order you to leave me alone, so I can do this research and save your brother!"

The elder Hedges looked at one another, and then at the diving helmet on the table. "You order us?" Amy asked.

"Aye!" Fiona cried, and the children realized it was the first time the

mycologist had uttered that word. "I'm in charge here! With my stepfather gone, I am the captain of the _Queequeg_! Aye!"

"It doesn't matter who the captain is!" Amy said. "The important thing is to save my brother!"

"Climb up that rope ladder!" Fiona cried. "Aye! Fire up those engines! Aye! We're going to save Sonic! Aye! And find my stepfather! Aye! And retrieve the sugar bowl! Aye! And it's no time to hesitate! She who hesitates is lost! That's my personal Philosophy!"

"That's the captain's personal Philosophy," Amy said, "not yours."

"I am the captain!" Fiona said fiercely. The middle Hedge could see that behind her triangular glasses, the mycologist was crying. "Go and do what I say."

Tails opened his mouth to say something more, but found that he, too, was crying, and without another word turned from his friend and walked over to the rope ladder, with Amy following behind. "She's wrong!" the middle Hedge whispered furiously. "You know she's wrong, Tails.

What are we going to do?"

"We're going to fire up the engines," Amy said, "and steer the

 _Queequeg_ out of this cave."

"But that won't save Sonic," Tails said. "Don't you remember the description of the _Medusoid Mycelium_?"

" 'A single spore has such grim power,' " Amy recited, " 'that you may, die within the hour.' Of course I remember."

"I hour?" Sonic said fearfully from inside his helmet. "Shush," Amy said. "Save your breath, Sonic. We'll find a way to cure you right away."

"Not right away," Tails corrected sadly. "Fiona is the captain now, and she ordered us –"

"I don't care about Fiona's orders," Amy said. "She's too volatile to get us out of this situation – just like her stepfather, and just like her brother!" The middle Hedge reached into the pocket of her uniform and drew out the newspaper clipping she had taken from the grotto. Her hand brushed against the tin of wasabi, and she shivered, hoping that her sister would recuperate and live to use the Japanese condiment in one of her recipes. "Listen to this, Tails!"

"I don't want to listen!" Tails said in an angry whisper. "Maybe Fiona is right! Maybe we shouldn't hesitate, particularly at a time like this! If we don't get an antidote to our sister, she might perish! Hesitating will only make things worse!"

"Firing up the engines, instead of helping Fiona with her research, will only make things worse!" Amy said.

At that moment, however, both Tails and Amy saw something that made things worse, and they realized that they both had been wrong. The two Hedges shouldn't have been firing up the engines of the _Queequeg_ , and they shouldn't have been helping Fiona with her research, and they shouldn't have been arguing with one another. The Hedges, and Fiona, too, should have been standing very still, trying not to make even the smallest noise, and instead of looking at the diving helmet, where their brother was suffering under the poison of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , they should have been looking at the submarine's sonar detector, or out of the porthole over the table, which looked out into the dark depths of the cave.

On the green panel was the glowing Q, representing the _Queequeg_ , but this was another thing in the world that was difficult to see, because another glowing green symbol was occupying the very same space. And outside the porthole was a mass of small metal tubes, circling in the gloomy water and making thousands and thousands of bubbles, and in the middle of all those tubes was a large, open space, like a gigantic hungry mouth – the mouth of an octopus, about to devour the _Queequeg_

and all its remaining crew. The image on the sonar detector, of course, was an eye, and the view from the porthole was of a submarine, but either way the children knew it was Count Eggman, and that made things much, much worse indeed.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Nine**

 _If_ you are considering a life of villainy – and I certainly hope that you are not – there are a few things that appear to be necessary to every villain 's success. One thing is a villainous disregard for other people, so that a villain may talk to his or her victims impolitely, ignore their pleas for mercy, and even behave violently toward them if the villain is in the mood of thing. Another thing villains require is a villainous imagination, so that they might spend their free time dreaming up treacherous schemes in order to further their villainous careers. Villains require a small group of villainous cohorts, who can be persuaded to serve the villain in a henchpersonal capacity. And villains need to develop a villainous laugh, so that they may simultaneously celebrate their villainous deeds and frighten whatever nonvillainous people happen to be nearby. A successful villain should have all of these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting.

Count Eggman, of course, was an excellent villain, a phrase which here means "someone particularly skilled at villainy" rather than "a villain with several desirable qualities," and the Hedge orphans had known this soon after that terrible day at Briny Beach, when the children learned of the terrible fire that began so many of the unfortunate events in their lives. But as the _Queequeg_ tumbled into the mouth of his dreadful octopus submarine, it seemed to the orphans that the villain had become even more villainous during his brief absence from their lives.

Eggman had proven his villainous disregard for other people over and over,

from his vicious murder of the children's guardians to his affinity for arson, a phrase which here means "enthusiasm for burning down buildings, no matter how many people were inside," but the children realized that Eggman's disregard had become even more dreadful, as the _Queequeg_ passed through the gaping mouth and was roughly tossed from side to side in a mechanical imitation of swallowing, forcing Tails and Amy – and Fiona, too, of course – to hang on for dear life as the Main Hall rolled this way and that, spinning Sonic in her helmet like a watermelon in a washing machine.

The count had displayed his villainous imagination on a number of occasions, from his dastardly schemes to steal the Hedge fortune to his nefarious plots to kidnap Manic and Sonia Quagmire, but the siblings gazed out of the porthole and saw that Eggman's infernal imagination had run utterly wild in decorating this terrible submarine, for the _Queequeg_ rolled along a rumbling tunnel that was almost as dark and threatening as the Gorgonian Grotto, with every inch of its metallic walls covered in eerie glowing eyes.

The count always had an assortment of cohorts, from his original theatrical troupe – many of whom were no longer with him – to some former employees of Caligari Carnival, but the orphans saw that he had lured many others to join him when the tunnel rounded a corner and the elder Hedges had a brief glimpse of an enormous room full of people rowing long, metal oars, activating the terrible metal arms of the octopus. And, perhaps worst of all, when the _Queequeg_ finally came to a shuddering stop and Tails and Amy looked out of the porthole, they learned that the villain had clearly been rehearsing his villainous laugh until it was extra wicked and more theatrical than ever.

Count Eggman was standing on a small, metal platform with a triumphant grin on his face, dressed in a familiar suit made of slippery-looking material, but with a portrait of another author whom only a very devoted reader would recognize, and when he peered through the porthole and spied the frightened children, he opened his mouth and began his new

villainous laugh, which included new wheezes, bonus snarls, and an assortment of strange syllables the Hedges had never heard.

"Ha ha ha heepa-heepa ho!" he cried. "Tee hee tort tort tort! Hot cha ha ha! Sniggle hee! Ha, if I do say so myself!"

With a boastful gesture, he hopped off the platform, drew a long, sharp sword, and quickly traced a circle on the glass of the porthole. Tails and Amy covered their ears as the sword shrieked its way around the window. Then, with one flick of his sword, Eggman sent the glass circle tumbling into the Main Hall, where it lay unbroken on the floor, and leaped through the porthole onto the large, wooden table to laugh at them further.

"I'm splitting my sides!" he cried. "I'm rolling in the aisles! I'm nauseous with mirth! I'm rattling with glee! I'm seriously considering compiling a joke book from all of the hilarious things bouncing around my brain! Hup hup ha ha hammy hee hee!"

Tails dashed forward and grabbed the helmet in which Sonic was still curled, so Eggman would not kick it as he pranced triumphantly on top of the table. he could not bear to think of his brother, who was inhaling the poison of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ as Eggman wasted precious minutes performing his tiresome new laugh.

"Stop laughing, Count Eggman," he said. "'There's nothing funny about villainy."

"Sure there is!" Eggman crowed. "Ha ha hat rack! Just think of it! I made my way down the mountain and found pieces of your toboggan scattered all over some very sharp rocks! Tee hee torpid sniggle! I thought you had drowned in the Stricken Stream and were swimming with all those coughing fishes! Ho ho hagfish! I was brokenhearted!"

"You weren't brokenhearted," Amy said. "You've tried to destroy us plenty of times."

"That's why I was brokenhearted!" Eggman cried. "Ho ho sniggle! I personally planned to slaughter you Hedges myself, after I had your fortune of course, and pry the sugar bowl out of your dead fingers or toes!"

Tails and Amy looked at one another hurriedly. They had almost forgotten telling Eggman that they knew the location of the sugar bowl, even though they of course had no idea of its whereabouts.

"To cheer myself up," the villain continued, "I met my associates at the Hotel Denouement, where they where they were cooking up a little scheme of their own, and convinced them to lend me a handful of our new recruits."

The elder Hedges knew that the associates were the man with a beard and no hair, and the woman with hair but no beard, two people so sinister that even Eggman seemed to find them a bit frightening, and that the new recruits were a group of Snow Scouts that these villains had recently kidnapped.

"Tee hee turncoat! Thanks to their generosity, I was able to get this submarine working again! Sniggle ha ho ho! Of course, I need to be back at the Hotel Denouement before Thursday, but in the meantime I had a few days to kill, so I thought I'd kill some of my old enemies! Tee hee halbert sniggle! So I began roaming around the sea, looking for Captain Charmy Widdershins and his idiotic submarine on my sonar detector! Tee hee telotaxis! But now that I've captured the _Queequeg_ , I find you Hedges aboard! It's hilarious! It's humorous! It's droll! It's relatively amusing!"

"How dare you capture this submarine!" Fiona cried. "I'm the captain of the _Queequeg_ , and I demand that you return us to the sea at once! Aye!"

Count Eggman peered down at the mycologist. "Aye?" he repeated. "You must be Fiona, that little fungus freak! Why, you're all grown up! The last time I saw you I was trying to throw thumbtacks into your cradle! Ha ha

hot polloi! What happened to Widdershins? Why isn't he the captain?"

"My stepfather is not around at the moment," Fiona replied, blinking behind her triangular glasses.

"Hee hee terry cloth!" Count Eggman said. "Your stepfather has abandoned you, eh? Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Your whole family could never choose which side of the schism was theirs. Your brother used to be a goody-goody as well, trying to prevent fires instead of encouraging them, but eventually –"

"My stepfather has not abandoned me," Fiona said, though her voice faltered a bit, a phrase which here means "sounded as if she weren't so sure." She did not even add an "Aye!" to her sentence.

"We'll see about that," Eggman said, grinning wickedly. "I'm going to lock all of you in the brig, which is the official seafaring term for Jail."

"We know what the brig is," Amy said.

"Then you know it's not a very pleasant place," the villain said. "The previous owner used it to hold traitors captive, and I see no reason to break with tradition."

"We're not traitors, and we're not leaving the _Queequeg_ ," Tails said, and held up the diving helmet.

Sonic tried to say something, but the growing fungus made her cough instead, and Eggman frowned at the coughing helmet.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"Sonic is in here," she said. "And he's very ill."

"I was wondering where the baby brat was," Count Eggman said. "I was hoping he was trapped underneath my shoe, but I see that it's just some ridiculous book."

He lifted his slippery foot to reveal _Mushroom_ _Minutiae_ , the book Fiona

had been using for her research, and kicked it off the table where it skittered into a far corner.

"There is a very deadly poison inside that helmet," Fiona said, staring at the book in frustration. "Aye! If Sonic doesn't receive an antidote within the hour, she will perish."

"What do I care?" Eggman growled, once again showing his villainous disregard for other people. "I only need one Hedge to get my hands on the fortune. Now come with me! Ha ha handiwork!"

"We're staying right here," Amy said. "Our brother's life depends on it."

Count Eggman drew his sword again, and traced a sinister shape in the air. "I'll tell you what your lives depend on," he said. "Your lives depend on me! If I wanted, I could drown you in the sea, or have you strangled by the arms of the mechanical octopus! It's only out of the kindness of my heart, and because of my own greed, that I'm locking you in the brig instead!"

Sonic coughed inside her helmet, and Tails thought quickly. "If you let us help our brother," he said, "we'll tell you where the sugar bowl is."

Count Eggman's eyes narrowed, and he gave the children a wide, toothy grin the two Hedges remembered from so many of their troubled times. His eyes shone brightly, as if he were telling a joke as nasty as his unbrushed teeth.

"You can't try that trick again," he sneered. "I'm not going to bargain with an orphan, no matter how pretty she may be. Once you get to the brig, you'll reveal where the sugar bowl is – once my henchman gets his hands on you. Or should I say hooks? Hee hee torture!"

Count Eggman leaped back through the porthole as Tails and Amy looked at one another in fear. They knew Count Eggman was referring to the

hook-handed man, who had been working with the villain as long as they had known him and was one of their least favorite of Eggman's comrades.

"I could race up the rope ladder," Tails murmured to the others, "and fire up the engines of the _Queequeg_."

"We can't take the submarine underwater with the window gone," Fiona said. "We'd drown."

Amy put his ear to the diving helmet, and heard his sister whimper, and then cough. "But how can we save Sonic?" he asked. "Time is running out.

Fiona eyed the far corner of the room. "I'll take that book with me," she said, "and –"

"Hurry up!" Count Eggman cried. "I can't stand around all day! I have plenty of people to boss around!"

"Aye!" Fiona said, as Tails, still holding Sonic, led Amy through the porthole to join Count Eggman on the platform. "I'll be there in a second," she said, and the mycologist took one hesitant step toward _Mushroom Minutiae_.

"You'll be there now!" Eggman growled, and shook his sword at her. "He who hesitates is lost! Hee hee sniggle!"

At the mention of the captain's personal Philosophy, Fiona sighed, and stopped her furtive journey – a phrase which here means "sneaking" – toward the mycological book. "Or she," she said quietly, and stepped through the porthole to join the Hedges.

"On the way to the brig, I'll give you the grand tour!" Eggman announced, leading the way out of the round, metal room that was serving as a sort of brig for the _Queequeg_ itself.

There were several inches of water on the floor, to help the captured submarine move through the tunnel, and the Hedges' boots made loud, wet splashes as they followed the boasting villain. While Sonic coughed again in her helmet, Eggman pressed an eye on the wall, and a

small door slid open with a sinister whisper to reveal a corridor.

"This submarine is one of the greatest things I've ever stolen," he bragged. "It has everything I'll need to defeat V.F.D. once and for all. It has a sonar system, so I can rid the seas of V.F.D. submarines. It has an enormous flyswatter, so I can rid the skies of V.F.D. planes. It has a lifetime supply of matches, so I can rid the world of V.F.D. headquarters. It has several cases of wine that I plan to drink up myself, and a closet full of very stylish outfits for my girlfriend. And best of all, it has plenty of opportunities for children to do hard labor! Ha ha hedonism!"

Gesturing with his sword, he led the children around a corner into an enormous room – the room they'd had a glimpse of as the _Queequeg_ tumbled inside this terrible place. It was quite dark, with only a few lanterns hanging from the tops of tall pillars scattered around the room, but Tails and Amy could see two large rows of uncomfortable-looking wooden benches, on which sat a crowd of children, hurriedly working long oars that stretched across the room and even beyond the walls, where they slid through metal holes in order to control the tentacles of the octopus.

The elder Hedges recognized some of the children from a troop of Snow Scouts they had encountered in the Mortmain Mountains, and a few looked quite a bit like other students at Prufrock Preparatory School, where the siblings had first encountered Sally Spats, but some of the others were children with whom the Hedges had had no prior experience, a phrase which here means "who had probably been kidnapped by Count Eggman or his associates on another occasion."

The children looked very weary, quite hungry, and more than a little bored as they worked the metal oars back and forth. In the very center of the room appeared to be another octopus – this one made of slippery cloth. Six of the octopus's arms hung limply at its sides, but two of them were waving high in the air, one of them clutching what looked like a long, damp noodle.

"Row faster, you stupid brats!" the octopus cried in a familiar, wicked voice. "We have to get back to the hotel Denouement before Thursday, and it's Monday already! If you don't hurry up I'm going to hit you with this tagliatelle grande! I warn you, being struck with a large piece of pasta is an unpleasant and somewhat sticky experience! Ho ho sniggle!"

"Hee hee snaggic!" Eggman cried in agreement, and the octopus whirled around.

"Darling!" it cried, and the siblings were not surprised to see that it was Eudora Squalor, Count Eggman's treacherous girlfriend, in another one of her absurd, stylish outfits.

Using the slippery cloth of the submarine's uniforms, the villainous girlfriend had fashioned an octopus dress, with two large plastic eyes, six extra sleeves, and suction cups stuck all over her boots, just as real octopi have on their tentacles to help them move around. Eudora took a few sticky steps toward Eggman and then peered at the children beneath the slippery hood of the dress.

"Are these the Hedges?" she asked in astonishment. "How can that be? We already celebrated their deaths!"

"It turns out they survived," Count Eggman said, "but their good luck is about to come to an end. I'm taking them to the brig!"

"The baby certainly has grown," Eudora said, peering at Fiona. "But he's just as ugly as he ever was, also I didn't knew it was possible to change your species."

"No, no," Eggman said. "The baby's locked up in that helmet, coughing her little lungs out. This is Fiona, Captain Widdershin's stepdaughter. The captain abandoned her!"

"Abandoned her?" Eudora repeated. "How _in_! How stylish! How marvelous! This calls for more of our new laughter! Ha ha hedgehog!"

"Tee hee tempeh!" Eggman cackled. "Life keeps getting better and better!"

"Sniggle ho ho!" Eudora shrieked. "Our triumph is just around the corner!"

"Ha ha hepplewhite!" Eggman crowed. V.F.D. will be reduced to ashes forever!"

"Giggle giggle glandular problems!" Eudora cried. "We are going to be painfully wealthy!"

"Heepa deepa ho ho ha!" Eggman shouted. "The world will always remember the name of this wonderful submarine!"

"What is the name of this submarine?" Fiona asked, and to the children's relief the villains stopped their irritating laughter.

Eggman glared at the mycologist and then looked at the ground. "The _Sally_ " he admitted quietly. "I wanted to call it the Eggman, but somebody made me change it."

"The Eggman is a cakesniffing name!" cried a rude voice the siblings had hoped never to hear again, and I'm sorry to say that Sally Spats skipped into the room, sneering at the Hedges as she did so.

Sally had always been the sort of unpleasant person who believed that she was prettier and smarter than everybody else, and Tails and Amy saw instantly that she had become even more spoiled under the care of Eggman and Eudora. She was dressed in an outfit perhaps even more absurd than Eudora Squalor's, in different shades of pink so blinding that Tails and Amy had to squint in order to look at her. Around her waist was a wide, frilly tutu, which is a skirt used during ballet performances, and on her head was an enormous pink crown decorated with light pink ribbons and dark pink flowers. She had two pink wings taped to her back, two pink hearts drawn on her cheeks, and two different pink shoes on each foot that made unpleasant slapping sounds as she walked.

Around her neck was a stethoscope, such as doctors use, with pink puffballs pasted all over it, and in one hand she had a long pink wand

with a bright pink star at the end of it.

"Stop looking at my outfit!" she commanded the Hedges scornfully. "You're just jealous of me because I'm a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!"

"You look adorable, darling," purred Eudora, patting her on the crown. "Doesn't she look adorable, Eggman?"

"I suppose so," Count Eggman muttered. "I wish you would ask me before taking disguises from my trunk."

"But Countie, I needed your disguises," Sally whined, batting her eyelashes, which were covered in pink glitter. "I needed a special outfit for my special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital!"

Several of the children groaned at their oars.

"Please, no!" cried one of the Snow Scouts. "Her dance recitals last for hours!"

"Have mercy on us!" cried another child.

"Sally Spats is the most talented dancer in the entire universe!" Eudora growled, snapping the noodle over the rower's heads. "You brats should be grateful that she is performing for you! It'll help you row!"

"Ugh," Sonic could not help saying from inside his helmet, as if the idea of Sally's dance recital were making him even sicker.

The elder Hedges looked at one another and tried to imagine how they could help their young sibling.

"I think we have a pink cape aboard the _Queequeg_ ," Amy said hurriedly. "It would look perfect on Sally. I'll just run back to the submarine, and –"

"I don't want your old clothes, you cakesniffer!" Sally said

scornfully. "A tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian doesn't wear hand-me-downs!"

"Isn't she precious" Eudora cooed. "She's like the adopted child I never had – except for you Hedges, of course. But I never liked you much."

"Are you going to stay and watch me, Countie?" Sally asked. "This is going to be the most special dance recital in the whole wide world!"

"There's too much work to do," Count Eggman said hastily. "I have to throw these children in the brig, so my associate can force them to reveal the location of the sugar bowl."

"You like that sugar bowl more than me," Sally pouted.

"Of course we don't, darling," Eudora said. "Eggman, tell her that sugar bowl doesn't mean a thing to you! Tell her she's like a wonderful marshmallow in the middle of our lives!"

"You're a marshmallow, Sally," Eggman said, and pushed the children out of the enormous room. "I'll see you later."

"Tell Hooky to be extra vicious with those brats!" Eudora cried, whipping the tagliatelle grande over her fake octopus head. "And now, on with the show!"

Count Eggman ushered the children out of the room as Sally Spats began tapping and twirling in front of the rowers. The elder Hedges were almost grateful to go to the brig, rather than being forced to watch a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital. Eggman dragged them down another hallway that twisted every which way, curving to the right and to the left as if it were a snake the mechanical octopus had eaten, and finally stopped in front of a small door, with a metal eye where the metal eye where the doorknob ought to have been.

"This is the brig!" Count Eggman cried. "Ha ha haberdasher!"

Sonic coughed once more from inside her helmet – a rough, loud cough that sounded worse than before. The Medusoid Micelium was clearly continuing its ghastly growth, and Tails tried one more time to convince the villain to let them help him.

"Please let us go back to the _Queequeg_ ," he said. "Can't you hear him coughing?"

"Yes," Count Eggman said, "but I don't care."

"Please!" Amy cried. "This is a matter of life and death!"

"It certainly is," Eggman sneered, turning the knob. "My associate will make you reveal the location of the sugar bowl if he has to tear you apart to do it!"

"Listen to my friends!" Fiona said. "Aye! We're in a terrible situation!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Count Eggman said, with a wicked smile, as the door creaked open to reveal a small, bare room. There was nothing in it but a small stool, at which a man sat, shuffling a deck of cards with quite a bit of difficulty. "How can a family reunion be a terrible situation?" Eggman said, and shoved the children inside the room, slamming the door behind them.

Tails and Amy faced Eggman's associate, and turned the diving helmet so Sonic could face him, too. The siblings were not surprised, of course, that the person shuffling the cards was the hook-handed fox, and they were not at all happy to see him, and they were quite scared that their time in the brig would make it impossible to save Sonic from the mushrooms growing inside her helmet. But when they looked at Fiona, they saw that the mycologist was quite surprised at who she saw in the brig, and quite happy to see the man who stood up from his stool and waved his hooks in amazement.

"Fiona!" the hook-handed fox cried.

"Fernald!" Fiona said, and it seemed they just might save Sonic after all.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Ten**

 _The_ way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that happy things are tainted with sadness, the way smoke leaves its ashen colors and scents on everything it touches. And you may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.

The Hedge orphans, of course, had had a great sadness in their life from the moment they first heard of their parents' death, and sometimes it felt as if they had to wave smoke away from their eyes to see even the happiest of moments. As Tails and Amy watched Fiona and the hook-handed fox embrace one another, they felt as if the smoke of their own unhappiness had filled the brig. They could not bear to think that Fiona had found her long-lost brother when they themselves, in all likelihood, would never see their parents again, and might even lose their sister as the poisonous spores of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ made her coughing sound worse and worse inside the helmet.

"Fiona!" the hook-handed fox cried. "Is it really you?"

"Aye," the mycologist said, taking off her triangular glasses to wipe away her tears. "I never thought I would see you again, Fernald. What happened to your hands?"

"Never mind that," the hook-handed fox said quickly. "Why are you here? Did you join Count Eggman, too?"

"Certainly not," Fiona said firmly. "He captured the _Queequeg_ , and threw us into the brig."

"So you've joined the Hedge brats," the hook-handed fox said. "I should have known you were a goody-goody!"

"I haven't joined the Hedges," Fiona said, just as firmly. "They've joined me. Aye! I'm the captain of the _Queequeg_ now."

"You?" said Eggman's henchman. "What happened to Widdershins?"

"He disappeared from the submarine," Fiona replied. "We don't know where he is."

"I don't care where he is," the hook-handed fox sneered. "I couldn't care less about that mustached fool! He's the reason I joined Count Eggman in the first place! The captain was always shouting 'Aye! Aye! Aye!' and ordering me around! So I ran away and joined Eggman's acting troupe!"

"But Count Eggman is a terrible villain!" Fiona cried. "He has no regard for other people. He dreams up treacherous schemes, and lures others into becoming his cohorts!"

"Those are just the bad aspects of him," the hook-handed fox said. "There are many good parts, as well. For instance, he has a wonderful laugh."

"A wonderful laugh is no excuse for villainous behavior!" Fiona said.

"Let's just agree to disagree," the hook-handed fox replied, using a tiresome expression which here means "You're probably right, but I'm too embarrassed to admit it." He waved one hook carelessly at his sister. "Step aside, Fiona. It's time for the orphans to tell me where the sugar bowl is."

Eggman's henchman scraped his hooks together to give them a quick sharpening, and took one threatening step toward the Hedges. Tails and Amy looked at one another in fear, and then at the diving helmet, where they heard their sister give another shuddering cough, and knew that it was time to lay their cards on the table, a phrase which here means "reveal themselves honestly to Eggman's wicked henchman."

"We don't know where the sugar bowl is," Tails said.

"My brother is telling the truth," Amy said.

"Do with us what you will, but we won't be able to tell you anything."

The hook-handed fox glared at them, and scraped his hooks together once more.

"You're liars," he said. "Both of you are rotten orphan liars."

"It's true, Fernald," Fiona said. "Aye! Finding the sugar bowl was the

 _Queequeg's_ mission, but so far we've failed."

"If you don't know where the sugar bowl is, the hook-handed fox said angrily, "then putting you in the brig is completely pointless!" He turned around and kicked his small stool, toppling it over, and then kicked the wall of the brig for good measure. "What am I supposed to do now?" he sulked.

Fiona put her hand on her brother's hook. "Take us back to the _Queequeg_ ," she said. "Sonic is in that helmet, along with a growth of _Medusoid Mycelium_."

" _Medusoid Mycelium_?" Eggman's henchman repeated in horror. "That's a very dangerous fungus!"

"he's in great danger," Tails said. "If we don't find a cure very, very soon, she'll die."

The hook-handed fox frowned, but then looked at the helmet and

gave the children a shrug.

"Why should I care if she dies?" he asked. "he's made my life miserable from the time I met him. Every time we fail to get the Hedge fortune, Count Eggman yells at everyone!"

"You're the one who made the Hedges' lives miserable," Fiona said. "Count Eggman has performed countless treacherous schemes, and you helped him time and time again. Aye! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

The hook-handed fox sighed, and looked down at the floor of the brig.

"Sometimes I am," he admitted. "Life in Eggman's troupe sounded like it was going to be glamorous and fun, but we've ended up doing more murder, arson, blackmail, and assorted violence than I would have preferred."

"This is your chance to do something noble," Fiona said. "You don't have to remain on the wrong side of the schism."

"Oh, Fiona," the hook-handed fox said, and put one hook awkwardly around her shoulder. "You don't understand. There is no wrong side of the schism."

"Of course there is," Amy said. V.F.D. is a noble organization, and Count Eggman is a terrible villain."

"A noble organization?" the hook-handed fox said. "Is that so? Tell that to your baby sister, you four-eyed fool! If it weren't for Volatile Fungus Deportation, you never would have encountered those deadly mushrooms!"

The children looked at one another, remembering what they had read in the Gorgonian Grotto. They had to admit that Eggman's henchman was right. But Amy reached into her pocket and drew out the newspaper clipping Sonic had found in the cave. She held it out so everyone could

see the Daily Punctilio article that the eldest Hedge had kept hidden for so long.

" 'VERIFYING FERNALD'S DEFECTION,' " she said, reading the headline out loud, and then continued by reading the byline, a word which here means "name of the person who wrote the article."

"By Jacques Snicket. It has now been confirmed that the fire that destroyed Anwhistle Aquatics, and took the life of famed ichnologist Gregor Anwhistle, was set by Fernald Widdershins, the son of the captain of the _Queequeg_ submarine. The Widdershins family's participation in a recent schism has raised several questions regarding..." Amy looked up and met the glare of Eggman's henchman. "The rest of the article is blurry," she said, "but the truth is clear. You defected – you abandoned V.F.D. and joined up with Eggman!"

"The difference between the two sides of the schism," Amy said, "is that one side puts out fires, and the other starts them." The hook-handed fox reached forward and speared the article on one of his hooks, and then turned the clipping around so he could read it again. "You should have seen the fire," he said quietly. "From a distance, it looked like an enormous black plume of smoke, rising straight out of the water. It was like the entire sea was burning down."

"You must have been proud of your handiwork," Fiona said bitterly.

"Proud?" the hook-handed fox said. "It was the worst day of my life. That plume of smoke was the saddest thing I ever saw." He speared the newspaper with his other hook and ripped the article into shreds. "The Punctilio got everything wrong," he said. "Captain Charmy Widdershins isn't my father. Widdershins isn't my last name. And there's much more to the fire than that. You should know that the Daily Punctilio doesn't tell the whole story, Hedges. Just as the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines, someone like Jacques Snicket can do something villainous, and someone like Count Eggman can do something noble. Even your parents have done –"

"Our stepfather knew Jacques Snicket," Fiona said. "He was a good man, but Count Eggman murdered him. Are you a murderer, too? Did you kill Gregor Anwhistle?"

In grim silence, the hook-handed fox held his hooks in front of the children.

"The last time you saw me," he said to Fiona, "I had two hands, instead of hooks. Our stepfather probably didn't tell you what happened to me – he always said there were secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know. What a fool!"

"Our stepfather isn't a fool," Fiona said. "He's a noble man. Aye!"

"People aren't either wicked or noble," the hook-handed fox said. "They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict." He turned to the two elder Hedges and pointed at them with his hooks. "Look at yourselves, Hedges. Do you really think we're so different? When those eagles carried me away from the mountains in that net, I saw the ruins of that fire in the hinterlands – a fire we started together. You've burned things down, and so have I. You joined the crew of the _Queequeg_ , and I joined the crew of the _Sally_. Our captains are both volatile people, and we're both trying to get to the Hotel Denouement before Thursday. The only difference between us is the portraits on our uniforms."

"We're wearing Herman Melville," Amy said. "He was a writer of enormous talent who dramatized the plight of overlooked people, such as poor sailors or exploited youngsters, through his strange, often experimental Philosophical prose. I'm proud to display his portrait. But you're wearing Edgar Guest. He was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Edgar Guest isn't my favorite poet," the hook-handed fox admitted.

"Before I joined up with Count Eggman, I was studying poetry with my stepfather. We used to read to one another in the Main Hall of the _Queequeg_. But it's too late now. I can't return to my old life."

"Maybe not," Amy said. "But you can return us to the _Queequeg_ , so we can save Sonic."

"Please," the children heard Sonic say, from inside the helmet, although her voice was quite hoarse, as if she would not be able to speak for much longer, and for a moment the only sound in the brig was Sonic's desperate coughing as the minutes in her crucial hour ticked away, and the muttering of the hook-handed fox as he paced back and forth, twiddling his hooks in thought.

Tails and Amy watched his hooks, and thought of all the times he had used them to threaten the siblings. It is one thing to believe that people have both good and bad inside them, mixed together like ingredients in a salad bowl. But it is quite another to look at a cohort of a despicable villain, who has tried again and again to cause so much harm, and try to see where the good parts are buried, when all you can remember is the pain and suffering he has caused. As the hook-handed fox circled the brig, it was as if the Hedges were picking through a chef's salad consisting mostly of dreadful – and perhaps even poisonous – ingredients, trying desperately to find the one noble crouton that might save their sister, just as I, between paragraphs, am picking through this salad in front of me, hoping that my waiter is more noble than wicked, and that my sister, Kit, might be saved by the small, herbed piece of toast I hope to retrieve from my bowl. After much hemming and hawing, however – a phrase which here means "muttering, and clearing of one's throat, used to avoid making a quick decision " – Count Eggman's henchman stopped in front of the children, put his hooks on his hips, and offered them a Hobson's choice.

"I'll return you to the _Queequeg_ ," he said, "if you take me with you."

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Eleven**

" _Aye_!" Fiona said. "Aye! Aye! Aye! We'll take you with us, Fernald! Aye!"

Tails and Amy looked at one another. They were grateful, of course, that the hook-handed fox was letting them save Sonic from the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , but they couldn't help but wish Fiona had uttered fewer "Aye!"s. Inviting Count Eggman's henchman to join them on the _Queequeg_ , even if he was Fiona's long-lost brother, seemed like a decision they might regret.

"I'm so glad," the hook-handed fox said, giving the two siblings a smile they found inscrutable, a word which here means "either pleasant or nasty, but it was hard to tell."

"I have lots of ideas about where we could go after we get off the

 _Sally_."

"Well, I'd certainly like to hear them," Fiona said. "Aye!"

"Perhaps we could discuss such things later," Tails said. "I don't think now is a good time to hesitate."

"Aye!" Fiona said. "She who hesitates is lost!"

"Or he," Tails reminded her. "We've got to get to the _Queequeg_ right away."

The hook-handed fox opened the door of the brig and looked up and down the corridor. "This will be tricky," he said, beckoning to the children with one of his hooks. "The only way back to the _Queequeg_ is through the rowing room, but that room is filled with children we've kidnapped.

Eudora took my tagliatelle grande and is whipping them so they'll row faster."

The elder Hedges did not bother to point out that the hook-handed

man had threatened the Hedges with the very same noodle, when the children had worked at Caligari Carnival, along with a few other individuals who had ended up joining Eggman's troupe.

"Is there any way to sneak past them?" Tails asked.

"We'll see," Eggman's henchman said. "Follow me." The hook-handed fox strode quickly down the empty corridor, with Fiona behind him and the two Hedges behind her, carrying the diving helmet in which Sonic still coughed. Tails and Amy purposefully lagged behind so they might have a word with the mycologist.

"Fiona, are you sure you want to take him with us?" Amy asked, leaning in close to murmur in her ear. "He's a very dangerous and volatile man."

"He's my brother," Fiona replied in a fierce whisper, "and I'm your captain. Aye! I'm in charge of the _Queequeg_. So I get to choose its crew.

"We know that," Tails said, "but we just thought you might want to reconsider."

"Never," Fiona said firmly. "With my stepfather gone, Fernald may be the only person I have left in my family. Would you ask me to abandon my own sibling?"

As if replying, Sonic coughed desperately from inside her helmet, and the elder Hedges knew that Fiona was right. "Of course we wouldn't," Amy said.

"Stop muttering back there," the hook-handed fox ordered, as he led the children around another twist in the corridor. "We're approaching the rowing room, and we don't want anyone to hear us."

The children stopped talking, but as the henchman stopped at the door to the rowing room, and held his hook over an eye on the wall which would open the door, Tails and Amy could hear that there was no

reason to be quiet. Even through the thick metal of the rowing room entrance, they could hear the loud, piercing voice of Sally Spats.

"For my third dance," she was saying, "I will twirl around and around while all of you clap as hard as you can. It is a dance of celebration, in honor of the most adorable tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian in the world!"

"Please, Sally," begged the voice of a child. "We've been rowing for hours. Our hands are too sore to clap." There was a faint, damp sound, like someone dropping a washcloth, and the elder Hedges realized that Eudora was whipping the children with her enormous noodle.

"You will participate in Sally's recital," the treacherous girlfriend announced, "or you will suffer the sting of my tagliatelle grande! Ha ha hoity-toity!"

"It's not really a sting," said one brave child. "It's more of a mild, wet slap."

"Shut up, cakesniffer!" Sally ordered, and the children heard the rustle of her pink tutu as she began to twirl. "Start clapping!" she shrieked, and then the children heard a sound they had never heard before.

There is nothing wicked about having a dreadful singing voice, any more than there is something wicked about having dreadful posture, dreadful cousins, or a dreadful pair of pants. Many noble and pleasant people have any number of these things, and there are even one or two kind individuals who have them all. But if you have something dreadful, and you force it upon someone else, then you have done something quite wicked indeed. If you force your wicked posture on someone, for instance, by leaning so far back that they are forced to carry you down the street, then you have wickedly ruined their afternoon walk, and if you force your dreadful cousins on someone, by dropping them off to play at their house so you can escape from their dreadful presences and

spend some time alone, then you have wickedly ruined their entire day, and only a very wicked person indeed would force a dreadful pair of pants on the legs and lower torso of somebody else. But to force your dreadful singing voice on somebody, or even a crowd of people, is one of the world's most wicked crimes, and at that moment Sally Spats opened her mouth and afflicted the crew of the _Sally_ with her wickedness. Sally's singing voice was loud, like a siren, and

high-pitched, like a squeaky door, and extremely off-pitch, as if all of the notes in the musical scale were pushing up against one another, all trying to sound at the same time. Her singing voice was mushy, as if someone had filled her mouth with mashed potatoes before she sang, and filled with vibrato, which is the Italian term for a voice that wavers as it sings, as if someone were shaking Sally very vigorously as she began her song. Even the most dreadful of voices can be tolerated if it is performing a good song, but I'm sad to say that Sally Spats had written the song herself and that it was just as dreadful as her singing voice.

Tails and Amy were reminded of Prufrock Preparatory School, where they had first met Sally. The vice principal of the school, a tedious man named Nero, forced his students to listen to him play the violin for hours, and they realized this administrator must have had a powerful influence on Sally's creativity.

"S is for 'splendid,' " Sally sang, "A is for 'adorable'! L is for 'Loveable' L is for 'gorgeous'! Y is for 'a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian'! Now let's begin my whole wonderful song all over again!" The song was so irritating, and sting so poorly, that Tails and Amy almost felt as if they were being tortured after all, particularly as Sally kept on singing it, over and over and over.

"I can't stand her voice," Tails said. "It reminds me of the cawing of the V.F.D. crows."

"I can't stand the lyrics," Amy said. "Someone needs to tell her that 'gorgeous' does not begin with the letter L. Same what she said with Y."

"I can't stand the brat," the hook-handed fox said bitterly. "She's one of the reasons I'd like to leave. But this sounds like as good a time as any to try to sneak through this room. There are plenty of pillars to hide behind, and if we walk around the very edge, where each oar sticks through the wall into the tentacles of the octopus, we should be able to get to the other door – assuming everybody is watching Sally 's

tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital." "That seems like a very risky plan," Tails said.

"This is no time to be a coward," the hook-handed fox growled. "My sister is not a coward," Amy said. "She's just being cautious."

"There's no time to be cautious!" Fiona said. "Aye! She who hesitates is lost! Aye! Or he! Let's go!"

Without another word, the hook-handed fox poked the eye on the wall, and the door slid open to reveal the enormous room. As Eggman's comrade had predicted, the rowing children were all facing Sally, who was prancing and singing on one side of the room while Eudora watched with a proud smile on her face and a large noodle in one of her tentacles. With the hook-handed fox and Fiona in the lead, the three Hedges – Sonic still in the diving helmet, of course – made their careful way around the outside of the room as Sally twirled around singing her absurd song.

When Sally announced what S was for, the children ducked behind one of the pillars. When she told her listeners the meaning of A, the children crept past the moving oars, taking care not to trip. When she insisted that "gorgeous " began with L, Count Eggman's henchman pointed one of his hooks at a far door, and when Sally reached Y, the children ducked behind another pillar, hoping the dim light of the lanterns would not give them away. When Sally announced that she

was the best, and bragged about being talented, Eudora Squalor frowned and turned around, blinking underneath the fake eyes of her octopus outfit, and the children had to flatten themselves on the floor so the villainous girlfriend would not spot them, and when the tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian found it necessary to remind her audience that she was, in fact, a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian, the two elder Hedges found themselves ahead of Fiona and the hook-handed fox, hiding behind a pillar that was just a few feet from their destination.

They were just about to inch their way toward the door when Sally began belting out the last line of her song – "belting out" is a phrase which here means "singing in a particularly loud and particularly irritating voice" – only to stop herself just as she was about to begin her whole wonderful song all over again.

"S is for – cakesniffers!" she shouted. "What are you doing here?" Tails and Amy froze, and then saw with relief that the terrible little girl was pointing scornfully at Fiona and the hook-handed fox, who were standing awkwardly between two oars.

"How dare you, Hooky?" Eudora said, fingering her large noodle as if she wanted to strike him with it. "You're interrupting a very _in_ recital by an unspeakably darling little girl!"

"I'm very sorry, your Eudoraness," the hook-handed fox said, stepping forward to elaborately bow in front of the wicked girlfriend. "I would sooner lose both hands all over again than interrupt Sally when she's dancing."

"But you did interrupt me, you handicapped cakesniffer!" Sally pouted. "Now I have to start the entire recital all over again!"

"No!" cried one of the rowing children. "Anything but that! It's torture!" "Speaking of torture," the hook-handed fox said quickly, "I stopped by

to see if I could borrow your tagliatelle grande. It'll help me get the Hedges to reveal the location of the sugar bowl."

Eudora frowned, and fingered the noodle with one tentacle. "I don't really like to lend things," she said. "It usually leads to people messing up my stuff."

"Please, ma'am," Fiona said. "We're so close to learning the location of the sugar bowl. Aye! We just need to borrow your noodle, so we can return to the brig."

"Why are you helping Hooky?" Eudora said. "I thought you were another goody-goody orphan."

"Certainly not," the hook-handed fox said. "This is my sister, Fiona, and she's joining the crew of the _Sally_."

"Fiona isn't a very _in_ name," Eudora said. "I think I'll call her Triangle Eyes. Are you really willing to join us, Triangle Eyes?"

"Aye!" Fiona said. "Those Hedges are nothing but trouble."

"Why are you still talking?" demanded Sally. "This is supposed to be my special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital time!"

"Sorry, darling," Eudora said. "Hooky and Triangle Eyes, take this noodle and scram!"

The hook-handed fox and his sister walked to the center of the room and stood directly in front of Eudora and Sally, offering a perfect opportunity for the elder Hedges to scram, a rude word which here means "slip out of the room unnoticed and walk down the shadowy hallway Eggman had led them down just a little while earlier."

"Do you think Fiona will join us?" Tails asked.

"I don't think so," Amy said. "They told Eudora they'd return to the brig,

so they'll have to go back the way we came."

"You don't think she's really joining Eggman's troupe, do you?" Tails said. "Of course not," Amy said. "That was just to give us an opportunity to

get out of the room. Fiona may be volatile, but she's not that volatile." "Of course not," Tails said, though she didn't sound very sure.

"Of course not," Amy repeated, as another ragged cough came from inside the diving helmet. "Hang on, Sonic," he called to his brother. "You'll be cured in no time!" Although he tried to sound as confident as he could, the middle Hedge had no way of knowing if his words were true – although, I'm happy to say, they were.

"How are you going to cure Sonic," Tails said, "without Fiona?" "We'll have to research it ourselves," Amy said firmly.

"We'll never read her entire mycological library in time to make an antidote," Tails said.

"We don't have to read the entire library," Amy said, as they reached the door to the _Queequeg's_ brig. "I know just where to look."

Sonic coughed again, and then began to wheeze, a word which here means "make a hoarse, whistling sound indicating that her throat was almost completely closed up." The elder Hedges could hardly stop themselves from opening the helmet: to comfort their sister, but they didn't want to risk getting poisoned themselves.

"I hope you're right," Tails said, pressing a metal eye on the wall. The door slid open and the children hurried toward the broken porthole of the submarine.

"Sonic's hour must almost be up." Amy nodded grimly, and jumped through the porthole onto the large wooden table.

Although it had only been a short while since the children had left the

 _Queequeg_ , the Main Hall felt as if it had been abandoned for years. The three balloons tied to the table legs were beginning to sag, the tidal charts Amy had studied had fallen to the floor, and the glass circle Count Eggman had cut in the porthole still lay on the floor. But the middle Hedge ignored all of these objects, and picked up _Mushroom_ _Minutiae_ from the floor.

"This book should have information on the antidote," he said, and turned immediately to the table of contents as Tails carried Sonic through the porthole into the submarine. "Chapter Thirty-Six, The Yeast of Beasts. Chapter Thirty-Seven, Morel Behavior in a Free Society.

Chapter Thirty-Eight, Fungible Mold, Moldable Fungi. Chapter Thirty-Nine, Visitable Fungal Ditches. Chapter Forty, The Gorgonian Grotto."

"That's it!" Tails said. "Chapter Forty."

Amy flipped pages as Sonic gave another desperate wheeze, although I wish the middle Hedge could have had the time to return to some of those pages he flipped past. " 'The Gorgonian Grotto,' " he read, " 'located in propinquity to Anwhistle Aquatics, has appropriately wraithlike nomenclature –' "

"We know all that,"' Tails said hurriedly. "Skip to the part about the mycelium."

Amy's eyes scanned the page easily, having had much practice in skipping the parts of books he found less than helpful. " 'The _Medusoid Mycelium_ has a unique conducive strategy of, waxing –' "

"And waning," interrupted Tails, as Sonic's wheezing continued to wax. "Skip to the part about the poison."

'As the poet says, ' " Amy read, " 'A single spore has such grim power

That you may die within the hour. Is dilution simple? But of course! Just one small dose of root of horse.' "

'Root of horse'?" Tails repeated. "How can a horse have a root?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "Usually antidotes are certain botanical extractions, like pollen from a flower, or the stem of a plant."

"Does 'dilution' mean the same thing as 'antidote?" Tails asked, but before his sister could answer, Sonic wheezed again, and the diving helmet rocked back and forth as she struggled against the fungus.

Amy looked at the book she was holding, and then at her brother, and then reached into the waterproof pocket of his uniform.

"What are you doing?" Tails asked.

"Getting my commonplace book," Amy replied. "I wrote down all the information on the history of Anwhistle Aquatics that we found in the grotto."

"We don't have time to look at your research!" Tails said. "We need to find an antidote this very minute! Fiona's right – He or she who hesitates is lost."

Amy shook his head. "Not necessarily," she said, and flipped a page of his dark blue notebook. "If we take one moment to think, we might save our sister. Now, what did Kit Snicket write in that letter? Here it is: 'The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium's destructive respiratory capabilities...' That's it!

V.F.D. was making something in a factory near Lousy lane that could dilute the effects of the _mycelium_."

"Lousy lane?" Tails said. "That was the road to Uncle Knuckles' house. It had a terrible smell, remember? It smelled like black pepper. No, not black pepper..."

Amy looked at her commonplace book, and then at _Mushroom_ _Minutiae_. "Horseradish," she said quietly. "The road smelled like horseradish! 'Root of horse'! Horseradish is the antidote!"

Tails was already striding to the kitchen. "Let's hope Espio likes to cook with horseradish," he said, and pushed open the door.

Amy picked up the wheezing helmet and followed him into the tiny kitchen. There was scarcely enough room for the children to stand in the small space between the stove, the refrigerator, and two wooden cabinets. "The cabinets must serve as a pantry," Amy said, using a word which here means "place where antidotes are hopefully stored." "Horseradish should be there – if he has it."

The elder Hedges shuddered, not wanting to think about what would happen to Sonic if horseradish were not found on the shelves. Within moments, however, Tails and Amy had to consider that very thing. Tails opened one cupboard, and Amy opened another, but the children saw immediately that there was no horseradish.

"Gum," Tails said faintly. "Boxes and boxes of gum Espio brought from the lumbermill, and nothing else. Did you find anything, Amy?"

Amy pointed to a pair of small cans on one shelf of his cupboard, and held up a small paper bag. "Two cans of water chestnuts," she said, "and a small bag of sesame seeds." Her fist closed tightly around the bag, and she blinked back tears behind his glasses. "What are we going to do?"

Sonic wheezed once more, a frantic whistle that reminded her siblings of a train's lonely noise as it disappears into a tunnel.

"Let's check the refrigerator," Tails said. "Maybe there's horseradish in there."

Amy nodded, and opened the kitchen's refrigerator, which was almost as bare as the pantry. On the top shelf were six small bottles of

lemon-lime soda, which Espio had offered the children on their first night aboard the _Queequeg_. On the middle shelf was a small piece of white, soft cheese, wrapped up in a bit of wax paper. And on the bottom shelf was a large plate, on which was something that made the two siblings

begin to cry.

"I forgot," Tails said, tears running down his face.

"Me too," Amy said, taking the plate out of the refrigerator.

Espio had used the last of the kitchen's provisions – a word which here means "cooking supplies" – to prepare a cake. It looked like a coconut cream cake, like Dr. Montgomery used to make, and the two siblings wondered if Sonic, even as a baby, had noticed enough about cooking to help Espio concoct such a dessert. The cake was heavily frosted, with bits of coconut mixed into the thick, creamy frosting, and spelled out in blue frosting on the top, in Espio's perky, optimistic handwriting, were three words. "Tails's Fifteenth Date," Amy said numbly. "That's what the balloons were for. It's not V.F.D. they were spelling. It was T.F.D."

"It was my fifteenth birthday," Tails said. "I turned fifteen sometime when we were in the grotto, and I forgot all about it."

"Sonic didn't forget," Amy said. "he said he was planning a surprise, remember? We were going to return from our mission in the cave, and celebrate your birthday."

Tails slunk to the floor, and lay her head against Sonic's diving helmet. "What are we going to do?" he sobbed. "We can't lose Sonic. We can't lose him!"

"There must be something we can use," Amy said, "as a substitute for horseradish. What could it be?"

"I don't know!" Tails cried. "I don't know anything about cooking!"

"Neither do I!" Amy said, crying as hard as her brother. "Sonic's the one who knows!"

The two weeping Hedges looked at one another, and then steeled themselves, a phrase which here means "summoned up as much strength as they could." Then, without another word, they opened the tiny door of

Sonic's helmet and quickly dragged their brother out, quickly shutting the door behind him so the fungus would not spread. At first, their brother looked completely unchanged, but when the wheezing young boy opened his mouth, they could see several gray stalks and caps of this horrible mushroom, splotched with black as if someone had poured ink into Sonic's mouth. Wheezing horribly, Sonic reached out his tiny arms to each of his siblings and grabbed their hands. he did not have to utter a word. Tails and Amy knew he was begging for help, but there was nothing they could do except ask him one desperate question.

"Sonic," Tails said, "we've researched an antidote. Only horseradish can save you. But there's no horseradish in the kitchen."

"Sonic," Amy said, "is there a culinary equivalent of horseradish?"

Sonic opened her mouth as if trying to say something, but the elder Hedges only heard the hoarse, whistling sound of air trying to make its way past the mushrooms. His tiny hands curled into fists, and her body twisted back and forth in pain and fear. Finally, he managed to utter one word – a word that many might not have understood. Some might have thought it was part of Sonic's personal vocabulary – perhaps her way of saying "I love you," or even "Farewell, siblings." Some might have thought it was pure nonsense, just the noises one might make when a deadly fungus has defeated you. But there are many others who would have understood it immediately. A person from Japan would have known she was talking about a condiment often served with raw fish and pickled ginger. A chef would have known that Sonic was referring to a strong, green root, widely considered the culinary equivalent of horseradish. And Tails and Amy knew that their brother was naming her salvation, a phrase which here means "something that would save her life," or "something that would rescue her from the _Medusoid Mycelium_ ," or, most importantly, "an item the middle Hedge still had in the waterproof pocket of her uniform, scaled in a tin Sonic had found in an underwater cavern."

"Wasabi," Sonic said, in a hoarse, mushroom-choked whisper, and he did not have to say anything more.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ __ **Twelve**

 _The_ expression "the tables have turned" is not one the Hedge orphans had much occasion to use, as it refers to a situation that has suddenly been reversed, so that those who were previously in a powerless position could suddenly find themselves in a powerful one, and vice versa. For the Hedges, the tables had turned at Briny Beach, when they received news of the terrible fire, and Count Eggman suddenly became a powerful and terrifying figure in their lives. As time went on, the siblings waited and waited for the tables to turn back, so that Eggman might be defeated once and for all and they could find themselves free of the sinister and mysterious forces that threatened to engulf them, but the tables of the Hedges' lives seemed stuck, with the children always in a position of misery and sorrow while wickedness seemed to triumph all around them. But as Amy hurriedly opened the tin of wasabi she had been keeping in her pocket, and spooned the green, spicy mixture into Sonic's wheezing mouth, it seemed like the tables might turn after all. Sonic gasped when the wasabi hit her tongue, and the stalks and caps of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ shivered, and seemed to shrink back from the powerful Japanese condiment. In moments, the fungus began to wither and fade away, and Sonic's wheezing faded into coughing, and her coughing faded into deep breaths as the youngest Hedge rallied, a word which here means "regained her strength, and ability to breathe." The youngest Hedge hung on tight to her siblings' hands, and her eyes filled with tears, but Tails and Amy could see that the _Medusoid Mycelium_ would not triumph over their brother.

"It's working," Tails said. "Sonic's breathing is getting stronger. "Yes," Amy said. "We've turned the tables on that ghastly fungus."

"Water," Sonic said, and his brother stood up from the kitchen floor and quickly got his sister a glass of water. Weakly, the youngest Hedge sat up and drank deeply from the glass, and then hugged both her siblings as tightly as she could. "Thank you," she said. "Saved me."

"You saved yourself," Tails pointed out. "We had the wasabi this whole time, but we didn't think of giving it to you until you told us."

Sonic coughed again, and lay back down on the floor. "Tuckered," he murmured.

"I'm not surprised you're exhausted," Tails said. "You've been through quite an ordeal. Shall we carry you to the barracks so you can rest?"

"Rest here," Sonic said, curling up at the foot of the stove.

"Will you really be comfortable on the kitchen floor?" Amy asked.

Sonic opened one exhausted eye and smiled at her siblings. "Near you," he said.

"All right, Sonic," Tails said, grabbing a dish towel from the kitchen counter, and folding it into a pillow for her sister. "We'll be in the Main Hall if you need us."

"What next?" he murmured.

"Shh," Amy said, putting another dish towel on top of her. "Don't worry, Sonic. We'll figure out what to do next."

The Hedges tiptoed out of the kitchen, carrying the tin of wasabi. "Do you think she'll be all right?" Tails asked.

"I'm sure he will," Amy said. "After a nap he'll be as good as new.

But we should eat some of that wasabi ourselves. When we opened the diving helmet, we were exposed to the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , and we'll need all of our strength to get away from Eggman."

Tails nodded, and put a spoonful of wasabi into his mouth, shuddering violently as the condiment hit his tongue. "There's one last spoonful," Tails said, handing the tin to his sister. "We'd better make sure that diving helmet stays closed until we get our hands on some horseradish and destroy that fungus for good."

Amy nodded in agreement, closed his eyes, and ate the last of the Japanese condiment. "If we ever invent that food code we talked about with Fiona," he said, "the word 'wasabi' should mean 'powerful.' No wonder this cured our sister."

"But now that we've cured her," Tails said, remembering Sonic's question as he fell asleep, "what next?"

"Eggman is next," Amy said firmly. "He said he has everything he needs to defeat V.F.D. forever – except the sugar bowl."

"You're right," Tails said. "We have to turn the tables on him, and find it before he does."

"But we don't know where it is," Amy said. "Someone must have taken it from the Gorgonian Grotto."

"I wonder –" Tails said, but he never said what she wondered, because a strange noise interrupted him. The noise was a sort of whir, followed by a sort of beep, followed by all sorts of noises, and they seemed to be coming from deep within the machinery of the _Queequeg_. Finally, a green light lit up on a panel in the wall, and a flat, white object began to slither out of a tiny slit in the panel.

"It's paper," Amy said.

"It's more than paper," Tails said, and walked over to the panel. The

sheet of paper curled into her hand as it emerged from the slit, as if the machine were impatient for the eldest Hedge to read it. "This is the telegram device. We must be receiving –"

"A Volunteer Factual Dispatch," Amy finished. Tails nodded, and scanned the paper quickly. Sure enough, the words "Volunteer Factual Dispatch " were printed on the top, and as more and more of the paper appeared, the eldest Hedge saw that it was addressed "To the _Queequeg_ ," with the date printed below, as well as the name of the person who was sending the telegram, miles and miles away on dry land. It was a name Amy almost dared not say out loud, even though she had felt as if she had been whispering it to herself for days, ever since the icy waters of the Stricken Stream had carried away a young man who meant very much to her.

"It's from Shadow Quagmire," she said quietly.

Tails' eyes widened in astonishment. "What does he say?" he asked. Amy smiled as the telegram finished printing, her finger touching the

S in her friend's name. It was almost as if knowing that Shadow was alive was enough of a message.

" 'It is my understanding that you have three additional volunteers on board STOP,' " she read, remembering that "STOP" indicates the end of a sentence in a telegram. " 'We are in desperate need of their services for a most urgent matter STOP. Please deliver them Tuesday to the location indicated in the rhymes below STOP.' "

She scanned the paper and frowned thoughtfully. "Then there are two poems," she said. "One by Lewis Carroll, the other by T. S. Eliot."

Amy took his commonplace book out of her pocket, and flipped pages until he found what he was looking for. "Verse Fluctuation Declaration," he said. "That's the code we learned in the grotto. Shadow must have changed some of the words in the poems, so no one else would know

where we're supposed to meet him. Let's see if we can recognize the changes."

Tails nodded, and read the first poem out loud:

" 'O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech.

'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the movie theater.'

"That last part sounds wrong," Tails said.

"There were no movie theaters when Lewis Carroll was alive," Amy said. "But what are the real words to the poem?"

"I don't know," Tails said. "I've always found Lewis Carroll too whimsical for my taste."

"I like him," Amy said, "but I haven't memorized his poems. Read the other one. Maybe that will help."

Tails nodded, and read aloud:

"At the violet hour when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a pony throbbing party."

The voice of the eldest Hedge trailed off, and he looked at his sister in confusion. "That's all," he said. "The poem stops there."

Amy frowned. "There's nothing else in the telegram?"

"Only a few letters at the very bottom," she said. " 'CC: J.S.' What does that mean?"

" 'CC' means that Shadow sent a copy of this message to someone else," Amy said, "and 'J.S.' are the initials of the person."

"Those mysterious initials again," Tails said. "It can't be Jacques

Snicket, because he's dead. But who else could it be?"

"We can't worry about that now," Amy said. "We have to figure out what words have been substituted in these poems. But I don't know how to dole it. Why would Shadow think we would have memorized these poems?"

"He wouldn't think that," Tails said. "He knows us. But the telegram was addressed to the _Queequeg_. He knew that someone on board could decode the poetry."

"But who?" Amy asked. "Not Fiona – she's a mycologist. An optimist like Espio isn't likely to be familiar with T. S. Eliot. And it's hard to imagine Captain Charmy Widdershins having a serious interest in poetry."

"Not anymore," Tails said thoughtfully. "But Fiona's brother said he and the captain used to study poetry together."

"That's true," Amy said. "He said they used to read to one another in the Main Hall." He walked over to the sideboard and opened the cabinet, peering at the books Fiona kept inside. "But there's no poetry here – just Fiona's mycological library."

"Captain Charmy Widdershins wouldn't keep poetry books out front like that," Tails said. "He would have kept them secret."

"Just like he kept the secret of what happened to Fiona's brother," Amy said.

"He thought there were secrets too terrible for young people to know," Tails said, "but now we need to know them."

Amy was silent for a moment, and then turned to his sister. "There's something I never told you," he said. "Remember when our parents were so angry over the spoiled atlas?"

"We talked about that in the grotto," Tails said. "The rain spoiled it when we left the library window open."

"I don't think that's the only reason they were mad," Amy said. "I took that atlas down from the top shelf – one I could only reach by putting the stepladder on top of the chair. They didn't think I could reach that shelf."

"Why would that make them angry?" Tails asked.

Amy looked down. "That's where they kept books they didn't want us to find," he said. "I was interested in the atlas, but when I removed it from the shelf there was a whole row of other books."

"What kind of books?" Tails asked.

"I didn't get a good look at them," Amy said. "There were a few books about war, and I think a few romances. I was too interested in the atlas to investigate any further, but I remember thinking it was strange that our parents had hidden those books. That's why they were so angry, I think – when they saw the atlas on the window seat, they knew I'd discovered their secret."

"Did you ever look at them again?" Tails said.

"I didn't have a chance," Amy said. "They moved them to another hiding place, and I never saw them again."

"Maybe our parents were going to tell us what was in those books when we were older," Tails said.

"Maybe," Amy agreed. "But we'll never know. We lost them in the fire." The elder Hedges sat quietly for a moment, looking at the cabinet in the sideboard, and then, without a word, the two siblings stepped onto the wooden table so they could open the highest cabinet. Inside was a small stack of books on such dull topics as child rearing, proper and improper diets, and the water cycle, but when the children pushed these books aside they saw what they had been looking for.

"Elizabeth Bishop," Tails said, "Charles Simic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Franz Wright, Daphne Gottlieb – there's all sorts of poetry here."

"Why don't you read T.S. Eliot," Amy suggested, handing him a thick, dusty volume, "and I'll tackle Lewis Carroll. If we read quickly we should be able to find the real poems and decode the message."

"I found something else," Amy said, handing her brother a crumpled square of paper. "Look." Amy looked at what his sister had given him. It was a photograph, blurred and faded with four people, grouped together like a family. In the center of the photograph was a large man with a long mustache that was curved at the end like a pair of parentheses – Captain Charmy Widdershins, of course, although he looked much younger and a great deal happier than the children had ever seen him. He was laughing, and his arm was around someone the two Hedges recognized as the hook-handed fox, although he was not hook-handed in the photograph – both of his hands were perfectly intact, one resting on the captain's shoulder, and the other pointing at whoever was taking the picture – and he was young enough to still be called a teenager, instead of a man. On the other side of the captain was a vixen who was laughing as hard as the captain, and in her arms was a young infant with a tiny set of triangular glasses.

"That must be Fiona's mother," Amy said, pointing at the laughing woman.

"Look," Tails said, pointing to the wall behind the family. "This was taken on board the _Queequeg_. That's the edge of the plaque with the captain's personal Philosophy – 'He who hesitates is lost.' "

"The whole family is lost, almost," Amy said quietly. "Fiona's mother is dead. Her brother joined Count Eggman's troupe. And who knows where her stepfather is?" She put down the photograph, opened her commonplace book, and flipped to the beginning, where he had pasted another

photograph taken long ago.

This photograph also had four people in it, although one of the people was facing away from the camera, so it was impossible to tell who it was. The second person was Jacques Snicket, who of course was long dead.

And the other two people were the Hedge parents. Amy had kept this photograph ever since the children found it at Heimlich Hospital, and had looked at it every day, gazing into his parents' faces and reading the one sentence, over and over, that had been typed below it. "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine," the sentence read, "experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown."

For quite some time, the Hedges had thought this meant one of their parents was alive after all, but now they were almost certain it meant no such thing. Tails and Amy looked from one photograph to the other, imagining a time when no one in the pictures was lost, and everyone was happy.

Tails sighed, and looked at his sister. "Maybe we shouldn't be hesitating here," Amy said. "Maybe we should be rescuing our captain, instead of reading books of poetry and looking at old photographs. I don't want to lose Fiona."

"Fiona's safe with her brother," Amy said, "and I'm sure she'll join us when she can. We need to decode this message, or we might lose everything. In this case, he or she who doesn't hesitate is lost."

"What if we decode the message before Fiona arrives?" Amy asked. "Do we wait for her to join us?"

"We wouldn't have to," Tails said. "The three of us could properly operate this submarine by ourselves. All we'd need to do is repair the porthole, and we could probably steer the _Queequeg_ out of the _Sally_. But

We can't abandon her here,"

"She wouldn't abandon us."

"Are you sure?" Tails asked.

Amy sighed, and looked at the photograph again. "No," he said. "Let's get to work."

Tails nodded in agreement, and the two Hedges shelved the discussion – a phrase which here means "temporarily stopped their conversation" and unshelved the poetry books in order to get to work on decoding Shadow's Verse Fluctuation Declarations. It had been some time since the Hedges had been able to read in a comfortable place, and the children were pleased to find themselves silently flipping pages, searching for certain words, and even taking a few notes. Reading poetry, even if you are only reading to find a secret message hidden within its words, can often give one a feeling of power, the way you can feel powerful if you are the only one who brought an umbrella on a rainy day, or the only one who knows how to untie knots when you're taken hostage. With each poem the children felt more and more powerful – or, as they might have said in their food code, more and more wasabi – and by the time the two volunteers were interrupted they felt as if the tables just might be continuing to turn.

"Snack!" announced a cheerful voice below them, and Tails and Amy were pleased to see their brother emerging from the kitchen carrying a small plate.

"Sonic!" Tails cried. "We thought you were asleep."

"Rekoop," the youngest Hedge said, which meant something along the lines of, "I had a brief nap, and when I woke up I felt well enough to cook something."

"I am a bit hungry," Amy admitted. "What did you make us?"

"Amuse bouche," Sonic said, which meant something like, "Tiny water chestnut sandwiches, with a spread of cheese and sesame seeds."

"They're quite tasty," Tails said, and the three children shared the plate of amuse bouche as the elder Hedges brought Sonic up to speed, a phrase which here means "told their brother what had happened while she was suffering inside the diving helmet." They told her about the terrible villain they encountered inside. They described the hideous circumstances in which the Snow Scouts found themselves, and the hideous clothing worn by Eudora Squalor and Sally Spats. They told her about the Volunteer Factual Dispatch, and the Verse Fluctuation Declarations they were trying to decode. And, finally, they told her about the hook-handed fox being Fiona's long-lost brother, and the possibility that he might join them aboard the _Queequeg_.

"Perifido," Sonic said, which meant "It would be foolish to trust one of Eggman's henchmen."

"We don't trust him," Tails said. "Not really. But Fiona trusts him, and we trust Fiona."

"Volatile," Sonic said.

"Yes," Tails admitted, "but we don't have much choice. We're in the middle of the ocean –"

"And we need to get to the beach," Amy said, and held up the book of Lewis Carroll's poetry. "I think I've solved part of the Verse Fluctuation Declaration. Lewis Carroll has a poem called 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' "

"There was something about a walrus in the telegram," Tails said.

"Yes," Amy said. "It took me a while to find the specific stanza, but here it is. Shadow wrote:

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech.

'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,

Along the movie theater.' "

"Yes," Tails said. "But what does the actual poem say?" Amy read,

"'O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech.

'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach.' "

Amy closed the book and looked up at his sisters. "Shadow wants us to meet him tomorrow," he said, "at Briny Beach."

"Briny Beach," Tails repeated quietly. The eldest Hedge did not have to remind his siblings, of course, of the last time they were at Briny Beach, learning from Mr. Silver Poe that the tables of their lives had turned. The three siblings sat and thought of that terrible day, which felt as blurred and faded as the photograph of Fiona's family – or the photograph of their own parents, pasted into Amy's commonplace book. Returning to Briny Beach after all this time felt to the Hedges like an enormous step backward, as if they would lose their parents and their home again, and Mr. Silver Poe would take them once more to Count Eggman's house, and all the unfortunate events would crash over them once more, like the waves of the ocean crashing on the tidepools of Briny Beach and the tiny, passive creatures who lived inside them.

"How would we get there?" Amy asked.

"In the _Queequeg_ ," Tails said. "This submarine should have a location device, and once we know where we are, I think I could set a course for Briny Beach."

"Distance?" Sonic asked.

"It shouldn't be far," Amy said. "I'd have to check the charts. But what would we do when we got there?"

"I think I have the answer to that," Tails said, turning to his book of T.

S. Eliot poems. "Shadow used lines from a very long poem in this book called The Waste Land."

"I tried to read that," Amy said, "but I found T. S. Eliot too opaque. I scarcely understood a word."

"Maybe it's all in code," Tails said. "Listen to this. Shadow wrote:

'At the violet hour when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a pony throbbing party.'

"But the real poem reads:

"At the violet hour when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a –"

"Blah blah blah ha ha ha!" interrupted a cruel, mocking voice. "Ha blah ha blah ha blah! Tee hee snaggle sniggle tee hee hee! Hubba hubba giggle diddle denouement!"

The Hedges looked up from their books to face Count Eggman, who was already stepping through the porthole and onto the wooden table. Behind him was Eudora Squalor, sneering beneath the hood of her octopus outfit, and the children could hear the unpleasant slapping footsteps of the horrid pink shoes of Sally Spats, who peeked her

heart-decorated face into the submarine and giggled nastily.

"I'm happier than a pig eating bacon!" Count Eggman cried. "I'm tickled pinker than a sunburned Caucasian! I'm in higher spirits than a brand-new graveyard! I'm so happy-go-lucky that lucky and happy

people are going to heat me with sticks out of pure, unbridled jealousy! Ha ha jicama! When I stopped by the brig to see how my associate was progressing, and found that you orphans had flown the coop, I was afraid you were escaping, or sabotaging my submarine, or even sending a

telegram asking for help! But I should have known you were too

dim-witted to do anything useful! Look at yourselves, orphans, snacking and reading poetry, while the powerful and good-looking people of the world cackle in triumph! Cackle cackle cutthroat!"

"In just a few minutes," Eudora bragged, "we will arrive at the Hotel Denouement, thanks to our bratty rowing crew. Tee hee triumphant! V.F.D.'s last safe place will soon be in ashes – just like your home, Hedges!"

"I'm going to do a special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital," Sally bragged, "on the graves of all those volunteers!" Sally leaped through the porthole, her pink tutu fluttering as if it were trying to escape, and joined Eggman on the table to begin a dance of triumph. "S is for Splendid!', " Sally sang, "A is for…"

"Now, now, Sally," Count Eggman said, giving the tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian a tense smile. "Why don't you save your dance recital for later? I'll buy you all the dance costumes in the world.

With V.F.D. out of the way, all the fortunes of the world can be mine – the Hedge fortune, the Quagmire fortune, the Widdershins fortune, the –"

"Where is Fiona?" Tails asked, interrupting the villain. "What have you done with her? If you've hurt her –"

"Hurt her?" Count Eggman asked, his eyes shining bright beneath his one scraggly eyebrow. "Hurt Triangle Eyes? Why would I hurt a clever girl like that? Tee hee troupe member!" With one of his tiresome dramatic gestures, Count Eggman pointed behind him, and Eudora clapped the tentacles of her outfit as two people appeared in the porthole. One was the

hook-handed man, who looked as wicked as he ever had. And the other was Fiona, who looked slightly different. One difference was the expression on her face, which looked resigned, a word which here means "as if the mycologist had given up entirely on defeating Count Eggman." But

the other difference was printed on the slippery-looking uniform she was wearing, right in the center.

"No," Tails said quietly, as he stared at his friend. "No," Amy said firmly, and looked at Tails.

"No!" Sonic said angrily, and bared his teeth as Fiona stepped through the porthole and stood beside Count Eggman on the wooden table.

Her boot brushed against the poetry books Tails and Amy had taken from the sideboard, including books by Lewis Carroll and T. S. Eliot.

There are some who say that the poetry of Lewis Carroll is too whimsical, a word which here means "full of comic nonsense," and other people complain that T. S. Eliot's poetry is too opaque, which refers to something that is unnecessarily complicated. But while everyone may not agree on the poets represented on the wooden table, every noble reader in the world agrees that the poet represented on Fiona's uniform was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics.

"Yes," Fiona said sadly, quietly, and the Hedge orphans looked up at the portrait of Edgar Guest, smiling on the front of her uniform, and felt the tables turn once more.

 _ **CHAPTER**_ **Thirteen**

 _The_ water cycle consists of three phenomena – evaporation, precipitation, and collection – and collection, the third of these phenomena, is the third of the phenomena that make up what is generally known as "the water cycle." This phenomenon, known as "collection," is the process of the gathering of water in the oceans, lakes, rivers, ponds, reservoirs, and puddles of the world, so that it will eventually go through the phenomena of evaporation and precipitation, thus beginning the water cycle all over again. It is a tedious thing for a reader to find in a book, of course, and I hope that my descriptions of the water cycle have bored you enough that you have put this book down long ago, and will not read Chapter Thirteen of The Grim Grotto any more than the Hedge orphans will ever read Chapter "Thirty-Nine of _Mushroom_ _Minutiae_ , no matter how crucial such a chapter might be. But however tedious the water cycle is to readers, it must be very tedious indeed to the drops of water who must participate in the cycle over and over again. Occasionally, when I pause while writing my chronicle of the Hedge orphans, and my eyes and back turn upward from my desk to look out at the evening sky – the purple color of which explains the expression "the Violet hour" – I imagine myself as a drop of water, especially if it is raining, or if my desk is floating in a reservoir. I think of how ghastly it would feel to be yanked away from my comrades, when we were gathered in a lake or puddle, and forced into the sky through the process of evaporation. I think how terrible it would feel to be chased out of a cloud by the process of precipitation, and tumble to the earth

like a sugar bowl. And I think of how heartbroken I would feel to gather once more in a body of water and feel, during the process of collection, that I had reached the last safe place, only to have the tables turn, and evaporate into the sky once more as the tedious cycle started all over again. It is awful to contemplate this sort of life, in which one would always be forced into motion by a variety of mysterious and powerful forces, never staying anywhere for long, never finding a safe place one could call home, never able to turn the tables for very long, just as the Hedge orphans found it awful to contemplate their own lives as Fiona betrayed them, as so many of their companions had betrayed them before, just when it seemed they might break out of the tedious cycle of unfortunate events in which they found themselves trapped.

"Tell them, Triangle Eyes," Count Eggman said with a wicked smile. "Tell the Hedges that you've joined up with me."

"It's true," Fiona said, but behind her triangular glasses her eyes were downcast, a word which here means "looking sadly at the floor." "Count Eggman said that if I helped him destroy the last safe place, he'd help me find my stepfather."

"But Count Eggman and your stepfather are enemies!" Tails cried. "They're on opposite sides of the schism."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Eudora Squalor said, her suction cups dragging along the floor as she stepped through the broken porthole. "After all, Captain Charmy Widdershins abandoned you. Maybe he's decided volunteers are _out_ – and we're _in_."

"My brother, my stepfather, and I could be together again," Fiona said quietly. "Don't you understand, Hedges?"

"Of course they don't understand!" Count Eggman cried. "Ha ha half-wits! Those brats spend their lives reading books instead of chasing after

fortunes! Now, let's remove all the valuables from the _Queequeg_ and we'll lock the orphans up in the brig!"

"You won't get away from us this time!" the hook-handed fox said, taking the tagliatelle grande from behind his back and whirling the noodle in the air.

"We didn't get away from you last time," Amy said. "You helped us sneak over here, to save Sonic. You said you wanted to come with us when we escaped in the _Queequeg_ and joined V.F.D. at the last safe place."

"V.F.D.," the hook-handed fox sneered. With one scornful flick of his hook he popped one of the balloons Espio had used to decorate the Main Hall for Tails' birthday. "All those silly volunteers with their precious libraries and complicated codes – they're fools, every last one of them. I don't want to sit around reading idiotic books! He who hesitates is lost!"

"Or she," Fiona said. "Aye,"

"Yes," Count Eggman said, "let's not hesitate a moment longer, Hooky. Let's tour this submarine and steal anything we want!"

"I want to come, too!" Eudora said. "I need a new fashionable outfit!"

"Of course, boss," the hook-handed fox said, walking toward the door of the Main Hall. "Follow me."

"No, you follow me!" Count Eggman said, pushing ahead of him. "I'm in charge!"

"But Countie," Sally whined, jumping off the wooden table and twirling around awkwardly. "I want to go first because I'm a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!"

"Of course you get to go first, precious," Eudora said. "You get whatever your adorable little heart desires, right Eggman?"

"I guess so," Eggman muttered.

"And tell Triangle Eyes to stay here and guard the orphans," Sally said. "I don't want her to take all the good stuff for herself."

"Guard the orphans, Triangle Eyes," Count Eggman said. "Although I don't think you orphans really need to be guarded. After all, there's nowhere for you to go! Tee hee traction!"

"Giggle giggle gaudy!" Sally cried, leading the way out of the Main Hall.

"Ha ha hair trigger!" Eudora screamed, following her.

"Tee hee tonsillectomy!" Count Eggman shrieked, walking behind his girlfriend.

"I also find this amusing!" the hook-handed fox yelled, and slammed the door behind him, leaving the Hedges alone with Fiona.

"Traitor," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "Don't do this, Fiona. There's still time to change your mind, and stay on the noble side of the schism."

"We received a Volunteer Factual Dispatch," Amy said, holding up the telegram. " V.F.D. is in desperate need of our services for a most urgent matter. We're meeting the volunteers at Briny Beach. You could come with us, Fiona."

"Greenhut!" Sonic cried. he meant something like, "You could be of enormous help," but Fiona didn't even wait for a translation.

"I'm sorry. You wouldn't abandon your brother," the mycologist said. "Aye! You risked your lives to save Sonic. How can you ask me to abandon mine?"

"Your brother is a wicked person," Amy said.

"People aren't either wicked or noble," Fiona said. "They're like chef's salads."

Tails picked up the photograph from the table and handed it to Fiona. "This doesn't look like a chef's salad to me," he said. "It looks like a family. Is this what your family would have you do, Fiona? Send three children to the brig, while you help a villain in his treacherous schemes?"

Fiona looked at the picture, and blinked back tears behind her triangular glasses. "My family is lost," she said. "Aye! My mother is dead. Aye! My father moved away. Aye! My stepfather has abandoned me.

Aye! My brother may not be as wonderful as you Hedges, but he is the only family I have. Aye! I'm staying with him. Aye!"

"Stay with him if you must," Amy said, "but let us go." "Rendezvous," Sonic said.

"Take us to Briny Beach," Tails translated. "We might be on opposite sides of the schism, Fiona, but that doesn't mean we can't help one another."

Fiona sighed, and looked first at the Hedges and then at the photograph of her family. "I could turn my back," she said, "instead of guarding you."

"And we could take the _Queequeg_ ," Tails said, "and escape."

Fiona frowned, and put the photograph back down on the table. "If I let you go to Briny Beach," she said, "what will you do for me?"

"I'll teach you how to repair submarines," Tails said, gesturing to the telegram device. "You could restore the _Queequeg_ to its former glory."

"I don't need the _Queequeg_ anymore," Fiona said. "Aye! I'm part of the crew of the _Sally_."

"I'll give you my commonplace book," Amy said, holding out her dark

blue notebook. "It's full of important secrets."

"Count Eggman knows more secrets than you'll ever learn," Fiona replied. "Mmph!" The children looked down and saw Sonic, who had slipped

away while the others were talking, and was now walking unsteadily back through the door marked KITCHEN, dragging his diving helmet.

"Don't touch that, Sonic!" Tails cried. "There's a very dangerous fungus in there, and we don't have any more antidote!"

"Mycelo," Sonic said, and lay the helmet at Fiona's feet.

"Sonic's right," Amy said, looking at the helmet and shuddering. "Inside that helmet is the bugaboo of the mycological pantheon – the _Medusoid Mycelium_."

"I thought you destroyed it," Fiona said.

"No," Tails said. "The _Medusoid Mycelium_ grows best in an enclosed space. You said that the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines. This is a very valuable specimen for a mycologist like yourself."

"That's true," Fiona admitted quietly, and looked down at the helmet.

The Hedges looked down, too, remembering their terrible journey through the grotto. They remembered how cold and dark it was when they left the _Queequeg_ and drifted through the cavern, and the horrifying sight of the _Medusoid Mycelium_ trapping them in the eerie cave until the stalks and caps waned away. They remembered their chilly journey back to the submarine, and the dreadful discoveries of the missing crew and the mushrooms sprouting inside Sonic's helmet, and the image of the octopus submarine on the sonar screen, and the villain who was waiting for them when they tumbled inside.

"We're back!" Count Eggman announced, bursting back into the Main Hall with his comrades behind him. Eudora and Sally were peeking into a

small, shiny box, and the hook-handed fox was staggering under the weight of the uniforms and diving helmets he was carrying.

"There wasn't much to steal, I'm afraid – this submarine is not quite up to its former glory. Still, I found a small jewelry box hidden in the barracks, with a few valuable items."

"I think the ruby ring is very _in_ ," Eudora purred. "It would look wonderful with my flame-imitating dress."

"That was my mother's," Fiona said quietly.

"She would have wanted me to have it Eudora said quickly. "We were close friends at school."

"I want the necklace!" Sally demanded. "It goes perfectly with my veterinarian stethoscope! Give it to me, Countie!"

"I wish we had those carnival freaks with us," the hook-handed fox said. "They could help carry some of these uniforms."

"We'll see them at the Hotel Denouement," said Count Eggman, "along with the rest of my comrades. Well, let's get out of here! We have lots to do before we arrive! Triangle Eyes, take the orphans to the brig! Ha ha hula dance!"

Humming a ridiculous tune, the villain performed a few dance steps of triumph, only to stumble over the diving helmet on the floor.

Sally giggled nastily as Eggman reached down and rubbed his tattooed ankle. "Ha, ha Countie!" cried Sally. "My dance recital was better than yours!"

"Get this hat out of here, Triangle Eyes," Count Eggman snarled. He bent down, picked up the helmet, and started to hand it to Fiona, but the hook-handed fox stopped him.

"I think you'll want that helmet for Yourself, boss," the henchman said.

"I prefer a smaller, lighter hat," Count Eggman said, "but I appreciate the gesture."

"What my brother means," Fiona explained, "is that inside this helmet is the _Medusoid Mycelium_."

The Hedges gasped and looked at one another in horror, as Count Eggman peered through the helmet's tiny window, his eyes wide beneath his eyebrow. "The _Medusoid Mycelium_ ," he murmured, and ran his tongue thoughtfully along his teeth. "Could it be?"

"Impossible," Eudora. Squalor said. "That fungus was destroyed long ago."

"They brought it with them," the hook-handed fox said. "That's why the baby was so sick."

"This is marvelous," Eggman said, his voice as raspy and wheezy as if he were poisoned himself. "As soon as you Hedges are in the brig, I'm going to open this helmet and toss it inside! You'll suffer as I've always wanted you to suffer."

"That's not what we should do!" Fiona cried. "That's a very valuable specimen!"

Eudora stepped forward and draped two of her tentacles around Eggman's neck. "Triangle Eyes is right," she said. "You don't want to waste the fungus on the orphans. Besides, you need one of them alive to get the fortune."

"That's true," Eggman agreed, "but the idea of those orphans not being able to breathe is awfully attractive."

"But think of the fortunes we can steal!" Eudora said. "Think of the people we can boss around! With the _Medusoid Mycelium_ in our grasp, who can stop us now?"

"No one!" Count Eggman cackled in triumph. "Ha hunan chicken! Ha ha hamantaschen! Ha ha hors d'oeuvres! Ha ha h –"

But the Hedge children never learned what ridiculous word Eggman was going to utter, as he interrupted himself to point across the Main Hall at a screen on the wall. The screen looked like a piece of graph paper, lit up in green light, and at the center were both a glowing letter Q, representing the _Queequeg_ , and a glowing eye, representing the terrible octopus submarine that had devoured them. But at the top of the screen was another shape – one they had almost forgotten about. It was a long curved tube, with a small circle at the end of it, slithering slowly down the screen like a snake, or an enormous question mark, or some terrible evil the children could not even imagine.

"What's that cakesniffing shape?" asked Sally Spats. "It looks like a big comma."

"Shh!" Count Eggman hissed, putting his filthy hand over Sally's mouth. "Silence, everyone!"

"We have to get out of here," Eudora murmured. "This octopus is no match for that thing."

"You're right," Eggman muttered. "Eudora, go whip our rowers so they'll go faster! Hooky, store those uniforms! Triangle Eyes, take the orphans to the brig!"

"What about me?" Sally asked. "I'm the cutest, so I should get to do something."

"I guess you'd better come with me," the count said wearily. "But no tap-dancing! We don't want to show up on their sonar!"

"Ta ta, cakesniffers!" Sally said, waving her pink wand at the three siblings.

"You're so stylish, darling," Eudora said. "It's like I always say: You can't

be too rich or too _in_!" The two wicked females jumped through the broken porthole and out of the _Queequeg_ , followed by the hook-handed fox, who gave the Hedges an awkward wave.

But before Count Eggman exited, he paused, standing on the wooden table, and drew his long, sharp sword to point at the children. "Your luck is over at last," he said, in a terrible voice. "For far too long, you keep defeating my plans and escaping from my clutches – a happy cycle for you orphans and an unprofitable one for me. But now the tables have turned, Hedges. You've finally run out of places to run. And as soon as we get away from that" – he pointed at the sonar screen with a flick of his sword, and raised his eyebrow menacingly – "you'll see that this cycle has finally been broken. You should have given up a long time ago, orphans. I triumphed the moment you lost your family."

"We didn't lose our family," Tails said. "Only our parents."

"You'll lose everything, orphans," Count Eggman replied. "Wait and see." Without another word, he leaped out of the porthole and disappeared into his ghastly mechanical octopus, leaving the Hedges alone with Fiona.

"Are you going to take us to the brig?" Tails asked.

"No," Fiona said. "Aye! I'll let you escape – if you can. You'd better hurry."

"I can set a course," Tails said, "and Amy can read the tidal charts." "Serve cake," Sonic said.

Fiona smiled, and looked around the Main Hall sadly. "Take good care of the _Queequeg_ ," she said. "I'll miss it. Aye!"

"I'll miss you," Tails said. "Won't you come with us, Fiona? Now that Eggman has the _Medusoid Mycelium_ , we'll need all the help we can get. Don't you want to finish the submarine's mission? We never found the sugar

bowl. We never found your stepfather. We never even finished that code we were going to invent."

Fiona nodded sadly, and walked to the wooden table. She picked up _Mushroom Minutiae_ , and then acted contrary to her personal Philosophy, a phrase which here means "hesitated for a moment, and faced the eldest Hedge."

"When you think of me," she said quietly, "think of a food you love very much." She leaned forward, kissed Tails gently on the mouth, and disappeared through the porthole without so much as an "Aye!"

The three Hedges listened to the mycologist's footsteps as she joined Count Eggman and his comrades, and left them behind. "She's gone," Tails said, as if he could hardly believe it himself. He lifted one trembling hand to his face, as if Fiona had given him a slap instead of a kiss. "How could she leave?" he asked. "She betrayed me. She betrayed all of us. How could someone so wonderful do something so terrible?"

"I guess her brother was right," Amy said, putting her arm around her brother. "People aren't either wicked or noble."

"Correctiona," Sonic said, which meant "Fiona was right, too – we'd better hurry if we want to escape from the _Sally_ before Eggman notices we're not in the brig."

"I'll set a course for Briny Beach," Tails said and took one last look at the porthole where Fiona had disappeared, and nodded.

"I'll look at the tidal charts," Amy said.

"Amnesi!" Sonic cried. She meant something along the lines of, "You're forgetting something!" and pointed one small finger at the circle of glass on the floor.

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "We can't launch the submarine without repairing that porthole, or we'll drown."

But Tails was already halfway up the rope ladder that led to the _Queequeg's_ controls. "You'll have to repair that yourself, Sonic," he called down.

"Cook," Sonic replied. "Cook and teeth."

"We don't have time to argue," Amy said grimly, pointing at the sonar screen. The question mark was inching closer and closer to the glowing Q.

"Aye," Sonic said, and hurried to the glass circle on the floor. It was still intact, but the youngest Hedge could think of nothing that could reattach the circle to the wall of the submarine.

"I think I've found the location device," Tails called down from the _Queequeg's_ controls. Quickly he flipped a switch, and waited impatiently as a screen came to life. "It looks like we're fourteen nautical miles southeast of the Gorgonian Grotto. Does that help?"

"Aye," Amy said, running his finger over one of the charts. "We need to travel straight north to Briny Beach. It shouldn't be far. But how are we going to get out of the Amy?"

"I guess we'll just fire up the engines," Tails said, "and I'll try to steer us back through the tunnel."

"Have you ever steered a submarine before?" Amy asked nervously. "Of course not," Tails said. "We're in uncharted waters, aye."

"Aye," Amy said, and looked proudly up at her brother. The two Hedges could not help grinning for a moment before Tails pulled a large lever, and the familiar, whirring sound of the _Queequeg's_ engines filled the Main Hall.

"Gangway!" Sonic cried, squeezing past Amy as she raced toward the kitchen. Tails and Amy heard their brother fumbling around for a

moment, and then the youngest Hedge returned, carrying two boxes the siblings recognized from their time in the town of Paltryville. "Gum!" he cried triumphantly, already ripping the wrappers off several pieces and sticking them into her mouth.

"Good idea, Sonic," Tails called. "The gum can act as an adhesive, and stick the porthole back together."

"That thing is getting closer," Amy said, pointing to the sonar screen. "We'd better get the submarine moving. Sonic can do the repair work while we move through the tunnel."

"I'll need your help, Amy," Tails said. "Stand at the porthole and let me know which way to turn. Aye?"

"Aye!" Amy replied.

"Aye!" Sonic cried, his mouth full of gum.

The elder Hedges remembered that their sibling had been too young for gum when the children were working at the lumbermill, and they could hardly believe he had grown up enough to be stuffing handfuls of the sticky substance into her mouth.

"Which way do I go?" Tails called from the controls.

Amy peered out of the porthole. "Right!" she called back, and the _Queequeg_ lurched to the right, traveling with difficulty in the little water at the bottom of the tunnel. There was an enormous scraping sound, and the Hedges heard a loud splashing from inside one of the pipes. "I mean, left!" Amy said quickly. "You and I are facing opposite directions! Left!"

"Aye!" Tails cried, and the submarine lurched in the opposite direction. Through the porthole, the Hedges could see that they were moving away from the platform where Eggman had first greeted them. Sonic spat a huge wad of gum onto the glass circle, and spread it around with his

hands on the circle's edge.

"Right!" Amy cried, and Tails turned the _Queequeg_ again, narrowly missing a turn in the passageway. The eldest Hedge looked nervously at the sonar screen, where the sinister shape was moving closer and closer to them. "Left!" Amy cried. "Left and down!"

The submarine lurched and sank, and through the porthole the middle Hedge caught a brief glimpse of the rowing room, with Eudora holding the tagliatelle grande threateningly in one fake tentacle. Sonic hurriedly stuffed more gum into his mouth, moving his enormous teeth furiously to soften the candy. "Left again!" Amy cried. "And then a very sharp right when I say 'Now'!"

"Now?" Tails called back.

"No," Amy said, and held up one hand as Sonic spit more gum onto the glass circle. "NOW!"

The submarine lurched violently to the right, sending several objects tumbling from the wooden table. Sonic ducked to avoid being knocked on the head by the poetry of T.S. Eliot.

"Sorry for the bumps," Tails called, from the top of the rope ladder. "I'm still getting the hang of these controls. What's next?"

Amy peered out of the porthole. "Keep going straight," she said, "and we should exit the octopus."

"Help!" Sonic cried, spreading the rest of the gum on the edge of the circle.

Amy hurried to his side, and Tails flew down the rope ladder to help, leaving the submarine's controls alone so the _Queequeg_ would travel in a straight line. Together, the three Hedges picked up the glass circle and climbed onto the wooden table so they could put the porthole back together.

"I hope it holds," Tails said. "If it doesn't," Amy said, "we'll know soon enough."

"On three," Sonic said, which meant something like, "After I say one and two."

"One! two!"

"Three!" the Hedge orphans said in unison, and pressed the glass circle against the hole Eggman had cut, smoothing the gum over the crack so that it might hold firm, just as the _Queequeg_ tumbled out of the mechanical octopus into the chilly waters of the ocean.

The Hedges pushed against the porthole together, their arms stretched out against the glass as if they were trying to keep someone from coming in a door. A few rivulets – a word which here means "tiny streams of water" – dripped through the gum, but Sonic hurriedly patted the sticky substance into place to stop the leaks. Her tiny hands smoothed the gum over the edge of the circle, making sure her handiwork was strong enough that the children wouldn't drown, but when she heard her siblings gasp she looked up from her work, looked through the repaired porthole, and stared in amazement at what he saw.

In the final analysis – a phrase which here means "after much thought, and some debate with my colleagues" – Captain Charmy Widdershins was wrong about a great many things. He was wrong about his personal Philosophy, because there are plenty of times when one should hesitate. He was wrong about his wife's death, because as Fiona suspected, Mrs.

Widdershins did not die in a manatee accident. He was wrong to call Espio "Cookie" when it is more polite to call someone by their proper name, and he was wrong to abandon the _Queequeg_ , no matter what he heard from the woman who came to fetch him. Captain Charmy Widdershins was wrong to trust his stepson for so many years, and wrong to participate in the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, and he was wrong to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a story in The Daily Punctilio was completely

true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including the Hedge parents, the Snicket siblings, and the woman I happened to love. But Captain Charmy Widdershins was right about one thing. He was right to say that there are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know, for the simple reason that there are secrets in this world too terrible for anyone to know, whether they are as young as Sonic Hedge or as old as Gregor Anwhistle, secrets so terrible that they ought to be kept secret, which is probably how the secrets became secrets in the first place, and one of those secrets is the long, strange shape the Hedge orphans saw, first on the _Queequeg's_ sonar, and then as they held the porthole in place and stared out into the waters of the sea.

Night had fallen – Monday night – so the view outside was very dark, and the Hedges could scarcely see this enormous and sinister shape. They could not even tell, just as I will not tell, if it was some horrifying mechanical device, such as a submarine, or some ghastly creature of the sea. They merely saw an enormous shadow, curling and uncurling in the water, as if Count Eggman's one eyebrow had grown into an enormous beast that was roaming the sea, a shadow as chilling as the villain's glare and as dark as villainy itself. The Hedge orphans had never seen anything so utterly eerie, and they found themselves sitting still as statues, pressing against the porthole in an utter hush. It was probably this hush that saved them, for the sinister shape curled once more, and began to fade into the blackness of the water.

"Shh," Tails said, although no one had spoken. It was the gentle, low shushing one might do to comfort a baby, crying in the middle of the night over whatever tragedy keeps babies awake in their cribs, and keeps the other members of the baby's family standing vigil, a phrase which here means "keeping nearby, to make sure everyone is safe." It does not really mean anything, this shushing sound, and yet the younger Hedges did not ask their brother what he meant, and merely stood vigil with him, as the shape disappeared into the ocean of the night, and

the children were safe once more.

Without a word, Tails took his hands off the glass, climbed off the table, and resumed her place at the _Queequeg's_ controls. For the rest of their journey, none of the children spoke, as if the unearthly spell of that terrible secret shape were still lingering over them.

All night long and into the morning, Tails worked the levers and switches of the submarine, to make sure it stayed on course, and Amy marked their path on the charts, to make sure they were heading to the right place, and Sonic served slices of Tails' birthday cake to his fellow volunteers, but none of the three Hedges spoke until a gentle hump! rocked the _Queequeg_ , and the submarine came to a gentle stop. Tails climbed down the rope ladder and ducked underneath a pipe to peer through the periscope, just as Captain Charmy Widdershins must have peered at the Hedges up in the Mortmain Mountains.

"We're here," she said, and the three Hedges left the Main Hall and walked down the leaky corridor to the room where they had first climbed aboard the submarine.

"Valve?" Sonic asked.

"We shouldn't have to activate the valve," Tails said. "When I looked through the periscope, I saw Briny Beach, so we can simply climb up the ladder –"

"And end up where we were," Amy finished, "a long time ago."

Without any further discussion the Hedge children climbed up the ladder, their steps echoing down the narrow passageway, until they reached the hatch. Tails grabbed the handle, too, so all three children turned the handle together, and opened the hatch together, and together they climbed out of the passageway, down the outside of the submarine, and lowered themselves onto the sand of Briny Beach.

It was morning – the same time of morning as the last time the

Hedge children had been there, receiving the dreadful news about the fire, and it was just as gray and foggy as that terrible day. Tails even saw a slender, smooth stone on the sand, and picked it up, just as she had done so long ago, skipping rocks into the water without ever imagining she would soon be exploring its terrible depths.

The siblings blinked in the morning sun, and felt as if some cycle were about to begin all over again – that once more they would receive terrible news, and that once more they would be taken to a new home, only to have surround them once more, as had happened so many times since their last visit to Briny Beach, just as you might be wondering if the Hedges' miserable story will begin all over again for you, with my warning you that if you are looking for happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. It is not a pleasant feeling, to imagine that the tables will never turn and that a tedious cycle will begin all over again, and it made the Hedges feel passive, just as they had in the waters of the Stricken Stream, accepting what was happening without doing anything about it as they looked around at the unchanged shore.

"Gack!" Sonic said, which meant "Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog!" and the Hedges watched as a familiar shape stopped in front of them, took off a tall top hat, and coughed into a white handkerchief.

"Hedges!" Mr. Silver Poe said, when he was done coughing. "Egad! I can't believe it! I can't believe you're here!"

"You?" Amy asked, gazing at the banker in astonishment. "You're the one we're supposed to meet?"

"I guess so," Mr. Silver Poe said, frowning and taking a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. "I received a message saying that you'd be here at Briny Beach today."

"Who sent the message?" Amy asked. Mr. Silver Poe coughed once more, and

then shrugged his shoulders wearily. The children noticed that he looked quite a bit older than the last time they had seen him, and wondered how much older they looked themselves.

"The message is signed J.S.," Mr. Silver Poe said. "I assume that it's that reporter from The Daily Punctilio – Geraldine Julienne. How in the world did you get here? Where in the world have you been? I must admit, Hedges, I had given up all hope of ever finding you again! It was a shame to think that the Hedge fortune would just sit in the bank, gathering interest and dust! Well, never mind that now. You'd better come with me – my car's parked nearby. You have a great deal of explaining to do."

"No," Tails said.

"No?" Mr. Silver Poe said in amazement, and coughed violently into his handkerchief. "Of course you do! You've been missing for a very long time, children! It was very inconsiderate of you to run away without telling me where you were, particularly when you've been accused of murder, arson, kidnapping, and some assorted misdemeanors! But I know that you are innocent and we are going to my car and

–"

"No," Tails said again, and reached into the pocket of her uniform. She held up the telegram to her siblings and read:

"At the violet hour when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a pony throbbing party…

"That's what's in the telegram." She paused, and scanned the horizon of the beach. Something caught her eye, and she gave her siblings a faint smile. "The real poem," she said, "goes like this:

"At the violet hour when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits

Like a taxi throbbing waiting."

"Verse Fluctuation Declaration," Amy said. "Code," Sonic said.

"What are you talking about?" Mr. Silver Poe demanded. "What is going on?"

"The missing words," Tails said to her siblings, as if the coughing banker had not spoken, "are 'taxi,' and 'waiting.' We're not supposed to go with Mr. Poe. We're supposed to get into a taxi." he pointed across the beach, and the children could see, scarcely visible in the fog, a yellow car parked at a nearby curb. The Hedges nodded, and Tails turned to address the banker at last. "We can't go with you," Tails said. "There's something else we need to do."

"Don't be absurd!" Mr. Silver Poe sputtered. "I don't know where you've been, or how you got here, or why you're wearing a picture of Santa Claus on your shirts, but I want to help –"

"It's Herman Melville," Amy said. "Goodbye, Mr. Poe." "I…" Mr. Silver Poe said in astonishment.

"Sayonara," Sonic said, and the three Hedges walked quickly across the beach, leaving the hanker coughing in astonishment.

"Wait!" he ordered, when he put his handkerchief away. "Come back here, Hedges! You're children! You're youngsters! You're orphans!" Mr. Poe's voice grew fainter and fainter as the children made their way across the sand.

"What do you think the word 'Violet' means?" Tails murmured to his siblings. "The taxi isn't purple."

"More code," Sonic guessed. "Maybe," Amy said. "Or maybe Shadow just wanted to write the colour of my eyes"

"Hedges!" Mr. Poe's voice was almost inaudible, as if the

Hedges had only dreamed he was there on the beach.

"Do you think he's in the taxi, waiting for us?" Tails asked.

"I hope so," Amy said, and broke into a run. Her siblings hurried behind her as she ran across the sand, her boots showering sand with each step. "Shadow," she said quietly, almost to herself, and then she said it louder. "Shadow! Shadow!"

At last the Hedges reached the taxi, but the windows of the car were tinted, a word which here means "darkened, so the children could not see who was inside."

"Shadow?" Amy asked, and flung open the door, but the children 's friend was not inside the taxi.

In the driver's seat was a rabbit the Hedges had never seen before, dressed in a long, black coat buttoned up all the way to her chin. On her hands were a pair of white cotton gloves, and in her lap were two slim books, probably to keep her company while she waited. The woman looked startled when the door opened, but when she spied the children she nodded politely, and gave them a very slight smile, as if she were not a stranger at all – also not a friend. The smile she gave them was one you might give to an associate, or another member of an organization to which you belong.

"Hello, Hedges," she said, and gave the children a small wave. "Climb aboard."

The Hedges looked at one another cautiously. They knew, of course, that one should never get into the car of a stranger, but they also knew that such rules do not necessarily apply in taxis, when the driver is almost always a stranger. Besides, when the woman had lifted her hand to wave, the children had spied the name of the books she had been reading to pass the time. There were two books of verse: The Walrus and the Carpenter, and Other Poems, by Lewis Carroll, and The Waste

Land, by T. S. Eliot. Perhaps if one of the books had been by Edgar Guest, the children might have turned around and run back to Mr. Poe, but it is rare in this world to find someone who appreciates good poetry, and the children allowed themselves to hesitate.

"Who are you?" Tails asked, finally. The woman blinked, and then gave the children her slight smile once more, as if she had expected the Hedges to answer the question themselves. "I'm Kit Snicket, but you can call me Vanilla" she said, and the Hedge orphans climbed aboard, turning the tables of their lives and breaking their unfortunate cycle for the very first time.


	13. The Penultimate Peril

_A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Twelfth_

 _to Cream_

 _No one can extinguish my love_

 _or your house_

The Penultimate Peril

 **Lemony Snicket**

R

 **One**

 _Certain_ people have said that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action. If this is true, then the book you are reading now is the perfect thing to drop into a pond. The ripples will spread across the surface of the pond and the world will change for the better, with one less dreadful story for people to read and one more secret hidden at the bottom of a pond, where most people never think of looking. The miserable tale of the Hedge orphans will be safe in the pond's murky depths, and you will be happier not to read the grim story I have written, but instead to gaze at the rippling scum that rises to the top of the world.

The Hedges themselves, as they rode in the back of a taxi driven by a woman they scarcely knew, might have been happy to jump into a pond themselves, had they known what sort of story lay ahead of them as the automobile made its way among the twisting streets of the city where the orphans had once lived. Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge gazed out of the windows of the car, marveling at how little the city had changed since a fire destroyed their home, took the lives of their parents, and created ripples in the Hedges' lives that would probably never become calm. As the taxi turned a corner, Tails saw the market where he and his siblings had shopped for ingredients to make dinner for Count Eggman, the notorious villain who had become their guardian after the fire. Even after all this time, with Eggman trying scheme after scheme to get his hands on the enormous fortune the Hedge parents had left behind, the market looked the same as the day Justice Tikal Strauss, a kindly neighbor and a judge in the High Court, had first taken them there. Towering over the market was an enormous, shiny building that Amy recognized as 667 Dark Avenue , where the Hedges had spent some time under the care of Jerome and Eudora Squalor in an enormous penthouse apartment. It seemed to the middle Hedge that the building had not changed one bit since the siblings had first discovered Eudora's treacherous and romantic attachment to Count Eggman. And Sonic Hedge, who was still small enough that his view out the window was somewhat restricted, heard the rattle of a manhole cover as the taxi drove over it, and remembered the underground passageway she and her siblings had discovered, which led from the basement of 667 Dark Avenue to the ashen remains of their own home. Like the market and the penthouse, the mystery of this passageway had not changed, even though the Hedges had discovered a secret organization known as V.F.D. that the children believed had constructed many such passageways. Each mystery the Hedges discovered only revealed another mystery, and another, and another, and several more, and another, as if the three siblings were diving deeper and deeper into a pond, and all the while the city lay calm on the surface, unaware of all the unfortunate events in the orphans' lives. Even now, returning to the city that was once their home, the Hedge orphans had solved few of the mysteries overshadowing them. They didn't know where they were headed, for instance, and they scarcely knew anything about the woman driving the automobile except her name.

"You must have thousands of questions, Hedges," said Vanilla Snicket, spinning the steering wheel with her white-gloved hands. Tails, who had adroit technical faculties-a phrase which here means "a knack for inventing mechanical devices"-admired the automobile's purring machinery as the taxi made a sharp turn through a large metal gate and proceeded down a curvy, narrow street lined with shrubbery "I wish we had more time to talk, but it's already Tuesday. As it is you scarcely have time to eat your important brunch before getting into your concierge disguises and beginning your observations as flaneurs."

"Concierge?" Tails asked.

"Flaneurs?" Amy asked. "Brunch?" Sonic asked.

Vanilla smiled, and maneuvered the taxi through another sharp turn. Two books of poetry skittered off the passenger seat to the floor of the automobile- _The Walrus and the Carpenter, and Other Poems_ by Lewis Carroll, and _The Waste Land_ by T S. Eliot. The Hedges had recently received a message in code, and had used the poetry of Mr. Carroll and Mr. Eliot in order to decode the message and meet Vanilla Snicket on Briny Beach, and now it seemed that perhaps Vanilla was still talking in riddles. "A great man once said that right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Do you understand what that means?"

Tails and Sonic turned to their sister, who was the literary expert in the family. Amy Hedge had read so many books she was practically a walking library, and had recently taken to writing important and interesting facts in a dark blue commonplace book. "I think so," the middle Hedge said. "He thinks that good people are more powerful than evil people, even if evil people appear to be winning. Is he a member of V.F.D.?"

"You might say that," Vanilla said. "Certainly his message applies to our current situation. As you know, our organization split apart some time ago, with much bitterness on both sides."

"The schism," Tails said.

"Yes," Vanilla agreed with a sigh. "The schism. V.F.D. was once a united group of volunteers, trying to extinguish fires-both literally and figuratively. But now there are two groups of bitter enemies. Some of us continue to extinguish fires, but others have turned to much less noble schemes. Only a few was in the middle, but to my knowledge the last one, Blaze is dead."

"Eggman," Sonic said. The language skills of the youngest Hedge were still developing, but everyone in the taxi knew what Sonic meant when he uttered the name of the notorious villain.

"Count Eggman is one of our enemies," Vanilla agreed, peering into her rearview mirror and frowning, "but there are many, many more who are equally wicked, or perhaps even more so. If I'm not mistaken, you met two of them in the mountains-a man with a beard, but no hair, and a woman with hair, but no beard. There are plenty more, with all sorts of hairstyles and facial ornaments. A long time ago, of course, you could spot members of V.F.D. by the tattoos on their ankles. But now there are so many wicked people it is impossible to keep track of all our enemies-and all the while they are keeping track of us. In fact, we may have some enemies behind us at this very moment."

The Hedges turned to look out of the rear window, and saw another taxi driving behind them at quite a distance. Like Vanilla Snicket's automobile, the windows of this taxi were tinted, and so the children could not see anything through the darkened glass.

"Why do you think there are enemies in that taxi?" Tails asked.

"A taxi will pick up anyone who signals for one," Vanilla said. "There are countless wicked people in the world, so it follows that sooner or later a taxi will pick up a wicked person."

"Or a noble one," Amy pointed out. "Our parents took a taxi to the opera one evening when their car wouldn't start."

"I remember that evening well," Vanilla replied with a faint smile. "It was a performance of _La Forza del Destino_. Your mother was wearing a red shawl, with long feathers along the edges. During intermission I followed them to the snack bar and slipped them a box of poison darts before Eudora Squalor could catch me. It was difficult, but as one of my comrades likes to say, 'To be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained-who can say this is not greatness?' And speaking of greatness, please hold on. We can't allow a potential enemy to follow us to our important brunch."

When someone says that their head is spinning, they are usually using an expression which means that they are very confused. Certainly the Hedges had occasion to use the expression in this way, after listening to a person hurriedly summarizing the troubles of a splintered secret organization and quoting various historical figures on the subject of wickedness while driving a taxi hurriedly toward some mysterious, unexplained errands. But there are rare moments when the expression "My head is spinning" refers to a time when one's head is actually spinning, and when Vanilla uttered the word "brunch," one of these moments arrived. The steering wheel clasped firmly in her gloves, Vanilla turned the taxi so sharply that it spun off the road. The children's heads-along with the rest of their bodies-spun along with the automobile as it veered into the dense, green shrubbery on the side of the road. When the taxi hit the shrubbery it kept spinning, and for a few seconds the siblings saw nothing but a green blur as the car spun through the shrubbery, and heard nothing but the crackle of branches as they scraped along the sides of the car, and felt nothing but relief that they had remembered to wear their seat belts, and then all of a sudden the Hedge heads stopped spinning, and they found themselves shaky but safe in a sloping lawn on the other side of the shrubbery, where the taxi had come to a stop. Vanilla turned off the engine and sighed deeply, leaning her head against the steering wheel.

"I probably shouldn't do that," she said, "in my condition." "Condition?" Sonic asked.

Vanilla lifted her head, and turned to fully face the Hedges for the first time since they had entered the car. She had a kind face, but there were lines of worry across her brow, and it looked like she hadn't slept properly for quite some time. Her hair was long and messy, and she had two pencils stuck into it at odd angles. She was wearing a very elegant black coat, buttoned up all the way to her chin, but tucked into the lapel was a flower that had seen better days, a phrase which here means "had lost most of its petals and wilted considerably." If the Hedges had been asked to guess Vanilla's condition, they would have said she looked like a woman who had been through much hardship, and the Hedges wondered if their own hardships were equally clear in their faces and clothes. "I'm distraught," Vanilla said, using a word which here means "sad and upset." She opened the door of the taxi and sighed once more. "That's my condition. I'm distraught, and I'm pregnant." She unhooked her seat belt and stepped out of the car, and the Hedges saw she had spoken the truth. Beneath her coat, her belly had a slight but definite curve, as happens when women are expecting children. When a woman is in such a condition, it is best to avoid strain, a word which here means "physical activity that might endanger either the woman or her future offspring." Tails and Amy could remember when their mother was pregnant with Sonic, and spent her free time

lounging on the largest sofa in the Hedge library, with their father fetching lemonade and pumpernickel toast, or adjusting the pillows beneath her so she was comfortable. Occasionally, he would play one of their mother's favorite pieces of music on the phonograph, and she would rise from the sofa and dance awkwardly, holding her growing belly and making funny faces at Tails and Amy as they watched from the doorway, but for the most part the third Hedge pregnancy was spent in quiet relaxation. The Hedges felt certain their mother had never spun a taxicab through shrubbery during her pregnancy, and were sorry that Vanilla Snicket's condition did not allow her to avoid the strain of such activities.

"Gather all of your things, Hedges," Vanilla said, "and if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to carry my things, too-just some books and papers in the front seat. One should never leave any belongings in a taxi, because you can never be sure if you'll see them again. Please be quick about it. Our enemies are likely to turn their taxi around and find us."

Vanilla turned away from the Hedges and began to walk quickly down the sloping lawn, while the Hedges looked at one another in bewilderment.

"When we arrived at Briny Beach ," Amy said, "and saw the taxi waiting for us, just like the message said, I thought we were finally going to find answers to all of our questions. But I have more questions now than I ever did."

"Me too," Tails said. "What does Vanilla Snicket want with us?"

"What did she mean by concierge disguises?" Amy said.

"What did she mean by observations as flaneurs?" Tails asked. "What's so important about brunch?" Amy asked.

"How did she know we met those villains in the mountains?" Tails asked.

"Where is Shadow Quagmire?" Amy asked, referring to a young man of whom the middle Hedge was particularly fond, who had sent the coded message to the three children.

"Trust?" Sonic said quietly, and this was the most important question of all. By "trust," the youngest Hedge meant something along the lines of, "Does Vanilla Snicket seem like a reliable person, and should we follow her?" and this is often a tricky question to ask about someone. Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter. The Hedges did not know very much about Vanilla Snicket, and so it was difficult to know what their future would be if they followed her down the sloping lawn toward the mysterious errands she had mentioned.

"In the few minutes we've known her," Tails said, " Vanilla Snicket has driven a taxicab into a mass of shrubbery. Normally I would be unwilling to trust such a person, but. . ."

"The poster," Amy said, as her brothers' voice trailed off. "I remember it, too. Mother said she purchased it during intermission, as a souvenir. She said it was the most interesting time she'd ever had at the opera, and she never wanted to forget it."

"The poster had a picture of a gun," Tails remembered, "with a trail of smoke forming the words of the title."

Sonic nodded his head. " _La Forza del Destino,"_ he said.

The three children gazed out at the sloping lawn. Vanilla Snicket had already walked quite some distance, without looking back to see if the children were following her. Without another word, the siblings reached into the passenger seat and gathered up Vanilla's things-the two books of poetry they had spotted earlier, and a cardboard folder brimming with papers. Then they turned and began walking across the lawn. From behind the hedges came a faint sound, but the children could not tell if it was a taxicab turning around, or just the wind rustling in the shrubbery.

" _La forza del destino_ " is an Italian phrase meaning "the force of destiny," and "destiny" is a word that tends to cause arguments among the people who use it. Some people think destiny is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner or later. Other people think destiny is a time in one's life, such as the moment one becomes an adult, or the instant it becomes necessary to construct a hiding place out of sofa cushions. And still other people think that destiny is an invisible force, like gravity, or a fear of paper cuts, that guides everyone throughout their lives, whether they are embarking on a mysterious errand, doing a treacherous deed, or deciding that a book they have begun reading is too dreadful to finish. In the opera _La Forza del Destino_ , various characters argue, fall in love, get married in secret, run away to monasteries, go to war, announce that they will get revenge, engage in duels, and drop a gun on the floor, where it goes off accidentally and kills someone in an incident eerily similar to one that happens in chapter nine of this very book, and all the while they are trying to figure out if any of these troubles are the result of destiny. They wonder and wonder at all the perils in their lives, and when the final curtain is brought down even the audience cannot be sure what all these unfortunate events may mean. The Hedge orphans did not know what perils lay ahead of them, as they followed Vanilla Snicket down the lawn, but they wondered- just as I wondered, on that fateful evening long ago, as I hurried out of the opera house before a certain woman could spot me-if it was the force of destiny that was guiding their story, or something even more mysterious, even more dangerous, and even more unfortunate.

Chapter 2

 _If_ you were to hold this book up to a mirror, you would see at once how confusing it is to read _kcab detcelfer era eht nehw sdrow dna srettel .uoy ot_ In fact, the entire world looks confusing in a mirror, almost as if _rehto elohw a si ereht yltcaxe , ecafrus revlis ynihs eht dnoyeb dlrow ,ni evil ew dlrow eht sa emas eht_ except backward. Life is perplexing enough without thinking about other worlds staring back at you from the mirror, which is why people who spend a great deal of time looking in the mirror tend to have trouble thinking about anything except _hcum os retfa revocsid yeht sterces gnilbis nwonknu ylsnoiverp a sa hcus , noicelfer yrev taht ta meht gihctaw ydaerla saw ohw .tnemom_

The Hedge orphans, of course, had not spent very much time looking in mirrors recently, as they'd been quite preoccupied, a word which here means "in desperate and mysterious circumstances brought about by Count Eggman." But even if they had spent every waking moment staring at their own reflections, they would not have been prepared for the perplexing sight waiting for them at the end of the sloping lawn. When Tails, Amy, and Sonic at last caught up with Vanilla Snicket, it felt as if they had stepped into the world on the opposite side of the mirror without even knowing it.

Impossible as it seemed, the lawn deposited the children at the roof of a building, but a building that lay flat on the ground instead of rising up toward the sky. The Hedges' shoes were inches from the roof's glittering shingles, where a large sign read hotel denouement.

Below the sign, farther from the orphans, was a row of windows with the number 9 emblazoned on each of their shutters. The row was very long, stretching out to the left and right of the Hedges, so far that they couldn't see the end of it. Below this row of windows was another with the number 8 emblazoned on the shutters, and then another row with 7, and so on and so on, the numbers getting farther and farther away from the Hedges, all the way down to 0. Protruding from one of the 0 windows was a strange funnel, which was spewing a thick, white fog toward the siblings, covering a set of stairs leading to a large, curved archway one story above, marked ENTRANCE. The building was constructed from strange, shimmering bricks, and here and there on the building were large, strange flowers and patches of dark green moss, which all lay out on the ground in front of the children.

After a moment, one of the shutters opened, and in an instant the Hedges realized why the Hotel Denouement seemed so perplexing. They had not been staring at the building at all, but at its reflection in an enormous pond. The actual hotel stood at the far end of the pond, and was reflected onto the pond's surface. Normally, of course, it is easy to tell a building from its reflection in a body of water, but whoever had designed the Hotel Denouement had added several features to confuse passersby. For one thing, the building did not stand up straight, but tilted toward the ground at a precise angle, so that the pond only reflected the hotel, and none of the surrounding landscape and sky. Also, all of the hotel's signage-which is simply a fancy word meaning "signs"-was written backward, so the numbers on the windows could only be read correctly in the pond, and the words on the roof of the actual hotel read _TNEMEUONED LETOH_. Finally, some hardworking gardener had managed to grow lilies and moss on the bricks of the hotel-the same sort of lilies and moss that grow on the surface of ponds. The three siblings looked down at the pond, and then up at the hotel, back and forth several times, before they were able to get their bearings, a phrase which here means "stop staring at this perplexing sight and direct their attention to Vanilla Snicket."

"Over here, Hedges!" the pregnant rabbit called, and the children saw that Vanilla had taken a seat on an enormous blanket laid out on the lawn. The blanket was heaped with enough food to feed an army, had an army decided that morning to invade a pond. There were three loaves of bread, each baked into a different shape, lined up in front of little bowls of butter, jam, and what looked like melted chocolate. Alongside the bread was an enormous basket containing all sorts of pastries, from muffins to donuts to custard éclairs, which happened to be a favorite of Amy's. There were two round tins containing quiche, which is a sort of pie made of eggs, cheese, and vegetables, and a large platter of smoked fish, and a wooden tray piled high with a pyramid of fruit. Three glass pitchers held three different kinds of juice, and there were silver pots containing coffee and tea, and laid out in a sort of fan was silverware with which to eat it all, and three napkins that were monogrammed, a word which here means "had the initials T. H. , A. H. , and S. H. embroidered on them."

"Sit down, sit down," Vanilla said, taking a bite of a pastry covered in powdered sugar. "As I said, we don't have much time, but that's no excuse for not eating well. Help yourselves to anything you like."

"Where did all this food come from?" Amy asked.

"One of our associates laid it out for us," Vanilla said. "It is a policy of our organization that all picnics travel separately from the volunteers. If our enemies capture the picnic, they won't get their clutches on us, and if our enemies capture us, they won't get the picnic. That's something to remember during the next couple of days, as you participate in what one of our enemies calls the 'perpetual struggle for room and food.' Please try the marmalade. It's delicious."

The Hedges felt dizzy, as if their heads were still spinning from the ride through the shrubbery, and Tails reached into her pocket to find a ribbon. The conversation was so bewildering that the eldest Hedge wanted to concentrate as hard as she did when she was dreaming up an invention. Tying his hair up helped Tails focus his inventing mind, but before he could find a ribbon, Vanilla smiled kindly at him, and produced a royal blue ribbon of her own. She gestured for the eldest Hedge to sit down, and with a gentle look in her eyes, the distraught and pregnant woman tied Tails' bangs up herself.

Vanilla sighed. "Your dad wore the same frown whenever he was confused, although he almost never tied his hair up in a ribbon when he solved a problem. Please, Hedges, eat your brunch, and I'll try to catch you up on our current predicament. By the time you're eating your second pastry I hope your questions will be answered."

The Hedges sat down, spread their monogrammed napkins on their laps, and began to eat, surprised to find that they were just as hungry for brunch as they were curious for information. Tails took two slices of dark wheat bread and made himself a sandwich of garlic and onion, deciding to try the chocolate spread afterward if he still had room. Amy served herself some quiche and took a custard eclair, and Sonic rooted through the tray of fruit until he found a grapefruit, which he began to peel with his unusually sharp teeth. Vanilla smiled at the children, dabbed at her own mouth with a napkin embroidered with V. S., and began to speak.

"The building at the other end of the pond is the Hotel Denouement," she began. "Have you ever stayed there?"

"No," Tails said. "Our parents took us to the Hotel Preludio once for the weekend." "That's right," Amy said. "I'd almost forgotten."

"Carrots for breakfast," Sonic said, remembering the weekend with a smile.

"Well, the Hotel Preludio is a lovely place," Vanilla said, "but the Hotel Denouement is more than that. For years, it's been a place where our volunteers can gather to exchange information, discuss plans to defeat our enemies, and return books we've borrowed from one another. Before the schism, there were countless places that served such purposes. Bookstores and banks, restaurants and stationery stores, cafes and laundromats, opium dens and geodesic domes- people of nobility and integrity could gather nearly everywhere."

"Those must have been wonderful times," Tails said.

"So I'm told," Vanilla said. "I was nine years old when everything changed. Our organization shattered, and it was as if the world shattered, too, and one by one the safe places were destroyed. There was a large scientific laboratory, but the volunteer who owned the place was murdered. There was an enormous cavern, but a treacherous team of realtors claimed it for themselves. And there was an immense headquarters high in the Mortmain Mountains , but-"

"It was destroyed," Amy said quietly. "We were there shortly after the fire."

"Of course you were," Vanilla said. "I'd forgotten. Well, the headquarters was the penultimate safe place."

"Penulhoo?" Sonic asked.

"'Penultimate' means 'next-to-last,'" Vanilla explained. "When the mountain headquarters was destroyed, only the Hotel Denouement was left. In every other place on Earth, nobility and integrity are vanishing quickly." She sighed, and gazed out at the still, flat surface of the pond. "If we're not careful, they'll vanish completely. Can you imagine a world in which wickedness and deception were running rampant?"

"Yes," Tails said quietly, and his siblings nodded in agreement. They knew that the word "rampant" meant "without anyone to stop it," and they could imagine such a world very easily, because they had been living in one. Since their first encounter with Count Eggman, the villain's wickedness and deception had run rampant all over the Hedges' lives, and it had been very difficult for the children to keep from becoming villains themselves. In fact, when they considered all of their recent actions, they weren't entirely sure they hadn't performed a few acts of villainy, even if they'd had very good reasons for doing so.

"When we were in the mountains," Amy said, "we found a message one of the volunteers had written. It said that V.F.D. would be gathering at the Hotel Denouement on Thursday."

Vanilla nodded, and reached to pour herself some more coffee. "Was the message addressed to J. S.?" she asked.

"Yes," Tails said. "We assumed the initials stood for Jacques Snicket."

"Brother?" Sonic asked.

Vanilla looked sadly down at her pastry. "Yes, Jacques, or as I think you know him Chocolate was my brother. Because of the schism, I haven't seen either of my brothers for years, and it was only recently that I learned of his murder."

"We met Chocolate very briefly," Tails said, referring to the time the Hedges had spent in the care of an entire village. "You must have been shocked to receive the news."

"Saddened," Vanilla said, "but not shocked. So many good people have been slain by our enemies." She reached across the blanket and patted the hands of all three Hedges in turn. "I know I don't have to tell you how terrible it feels to lose a family member. I felt so terrible that I vowed I would never leave my bed."

"What happened?" Amy said.

Vanilla smiled. "I got hungry," she said, "and when I opened the refrigerator, I found another message waiting for me."

"Verbal Fridge Dialogue," Tails said, "the same code as the message we found in the mountains."

"Yes," Vanilla said. "You three had been spotted by another volunteer. We knew, of course, that you children had nothing to do with my brother's death, no matter what that ridiculous reporter wrote in _The Daily Punctilio_ "

The Hedges looked at one another. They had almost forgotten about Geraldine Julienne, a weasel journalist who had caused them much inadvertent trouble, a phrase which here means "published in the newspaper that the Hedge orphans had murdered Jacques Snicket, whom she mistakenly identified as Count Eggman." The siblings had found it necessary to disguise themselves several times so as not to be captured by the authorities.

"Who spotted us?" Amy asked.

"Shadow Quagmire, of course," she said. "He found you in the Mortmain Mountains , and then managed to contact me when you were separated from him. He and I managed to meet each other in an abandoned bathrobe emporium, where we disguised ourselves as mannequins while we figured out what to do next. Finally, we managed to send a Volunteer Factual Dispatch to Captain Charmy Widdershin s's submarine."

"Queequeg" Sonic said, naming the underwater vehicle where he and his siblings had recently spent a dreadful few days.

"Our plan was to meet up with you at Briny Beach," Vanilla said, "and proceed to the Hotel Denouement for the V.F.D. gathering."

"But where is Shadow?" Amy asked.

Vanilla sighed, and took a sip of her coffee. "He was very eager to see you," she said, "but he received word from his siblings."

"Manic and Sonia!" Amy cried. "We haven't seen them for quite some time. Are they safe?"

"I hope so," Vanilla answered. "The message they sent was incomplete, but it sounded as if they were being attacked in midair while flying over the sea. Shadow went to help them immediately in a helicopter we stole from a nearby botanist. If all goes well, you'll see all three Quagmire triplets on Thursday. That is, unless you cancel the gathering."

"Cancel it?" Tails asked. "Why would we do a thing like that?"

"The last safe place may not be safe after all," Vanilla said sadly. "If that's the case, you Hedges will need to send V.F.D. a signal that Thursday's gathering is canceled."

"Why not safe?" Sonic asked.

Vanilla smiled at the youngest Hedge, opened the cardboard folder that the Hedges had retrieved from the taxicab, and began to page through the papers inside. "I'm sorry this is so disorganized," she said. "I haven't had time to update my commonplace book. My brother used to say that if only one had a little more time to do some important reading, all the secrets in the world would become clear. I've scarcely looked at these maps, poems, and blueprints that Big sent me, or chosen wallpaper for the baby's room that Dr. Rouge Orwell helped me find. Wait one moment, Hedges. I'll find it."

The children helped themselves to more brunch, trying to be patient as Vanilla looked through her folder, pausing from time to time to smooth out the particularly crumpled papers. At last she held up a tiny piece of paper, no bigger than a caterpillar, which was rolled into a tiny scroll. "Here it is," she said. "A waiter slipped this to me last night by hiding it inside a cookie."

She handed it to Amy, who unrolled the paper and squinted at it behind her glasses. "'J. S. has checked in,'" she read out loud, "'and requested tea with sugar. My brother sends his regards. Sincerely, Frank.'"

"Usually the messages inside the cookies are just superstitious nonsense," Vanilla said, "but recently the restaurant has changed management. You can understand why this message made me so distraught, Hedges. Someone is posing as my brother, and has checked into the hotel shortly before our entire organization is scheduled to arrive."

"Count Eggman," Tails said.

"It could be Eggman," Vanilla agreed, "but there are plenty of villains who are all too eager to be impostors. Those two villains in the mountains, for example."

"Or Scourge , Rosy, or Miles," Amy said, naming three people the children had met at Caligari Carnival, who had since joined Eggman's troupe and had agreed to meet him at the hotel.

"But this J. S. isn't necessarily a wicked person," Vanilla said. "Plenty of noble people would check into the Hotel Denoument and order sugar in their tea. Not to sweeten it, of course- tea should be as bitter as wormwood, my brother used to say, and as sharp as a two-edged sword-

but as a signal. Our comrades and our enemies are all after the same thing-the Vessel For Disaccharides."

"Sugar bowl," Sonic said, sharing a look of dismay with his siblings. The Hedges knew that Vanilla was referring to a sugar bowl that was of great importance to V.F.D. and to Count Eggman, who was desperate to get his hands on it. The children had searched for this sugar bowl from the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains to the underwater depths of the Gorgonian Grotto, but had neither found this sugar bowl nor learned why it was so important.

"Exactly," Vanilla said. "The sugar bowl is on its way to the hotel even as we speak, and I'd hate to think what would happen if our enemies got ahold of it. I can't imagine anything worse, except perhaps if our enemies somehow got ahold of the Medusoid Mycelium."

The Hedges' look of dismay augmented, a word which here means "increased dramatically as they realized they had some bad news for Vanilla Snicket." "I'm afraid that Count Eggman has a small sample of the Medusoid Mycelium," Tails said, referring to a deadly fungus the children had encountered while exploring the ocean. Its sinister spores had infected poor Sonic, who might not have survived had his siblings not managed to dilute the poison in the nick of time. "We had a few spores locked tight in a diving helmet, but Eggman managed to steal it."

Vanilla gasped. "Then we most certainly have no time to lose. The three of you must infiltrate the Hotel Denouement and observe J. S. If J. S. is a noble person, then you must make sure that the sugar bowl falls into his or her hands, but if J. S. is a villainous person, you must make sure it does not. And I'm sad to say that this won't be as easy as it sounds."

"It doesn't sound easy at all," Amy said.

"That's the spirit," Vanilla said, popping a grape into her mouth. "Of course, you won't be alone. Showing up early is one of the signs of a noble person, so there are other volunteers already at the hotel. You may even recognize some volunteers who have been observing you during your travels. But you also may recognize some of your enemies, as they will be posing as noble people by showing up early as well. While you try to observe the impostor, various impostors will undoubtedly be observing you."

"But how can we tell the volunteers from the enemies?" Tails asked.

"The same way you always do," Vanilla said. "When you first met Count Eggman, did you have any doubt he was a treacherous person? When you first met the Quagmire triplets, did you have any doubt that they were charming and resourceful? You'll have to observe everyone you see, and make such judgements yourselves. You Hedges will become flaneurs."

"Expound," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "I'm afraid I don't know what that word means."

"Flaneurs," Vanilla explained, "are people who quietly observe their surroundings, intruding only when it is absolutely necessary. Children make excellent flaneurs, as so few people notice them. You'll be able to pass unnoticed in the hotel."

"We can't pass unnoticed," Amy said. " _The Daily Punctilio_ has published our photographs in the paper. Someone is sure to recognize us and report our presence to the authorities."

"My sister's right," Tails said. "Three children just can't go wandering around a hotel observing things."

Vanilla smiled, and lifted one corner of the picnic blanket. Underneath were three parcels wrapped in paper. "The man who sent me the message about the impostor," she said, "is a noble member of V.F.D. He suggested that he hire the three of you as concierges. Your uniforms are in these packets."

"Expound again," Sonic said.

Amy had taken out her commonplace book and was taking notes on what Vanilla was saying. The opportunity to define a word, however, was enough to interrupt her research. "A concierge," she said to her brother, "is someone who performs various tasks for guests in the hotel."

"It's the perfect disguise," Vanilla said. "You'll be doing everything from fetching packages to recommending restaurants. You'll be allowed in every corner of the hotel, from the rooftop sunbathing salon to the laundry room in the basement, and no one will suspect you're there to spy on them. Frank, a fox will help you as best he can, but be very careful. The schism has turned many brothers into enemies. Under no circumstances should you reveal your true selves to Frank's treacherous identical brother Ernest."

"Identical?" Tails repeated. "If they're identical, how can we tell them apart?"

Vanilla took one last sip of her coffee. "Please try to pay attention," she said. "You'll have to observe everyone you see, and make such judgments yourselves. That's the only way to tell a villain from a volunteer. Now, is everything perfectly clear?"

The Hedges looked at one another. They could not remember a time in their lives when everything had been less clear than at this very moment, when every sentence Vanilla uttered seemed to be more mysterious than the last.

Amy looked at the notes he had made in his commonplace book, and tried to summarize the errand Vanilla had outlined for them. "We're going to disguise ourselves as concierges," he said carefully, "in order to become flaneurs and observe an impostor who is either a volunteer or an enemy."

"A man named Frank is going to help us," Tails said, "but his brother Ernest will try to stop us."

"There are several other volunteers in the hotel," Amy said, "but several other enemies as well."

"Sugar bowl," Sonic said.

"Very good," Vanilla said approvingly. "When you're done with your brunch, you can change into your uniforms behind that tree, and signal to Frank that you're on your way. Do you have something you can throw into the pond?"

Tails reached into his pocket and drew out a stone he had picked up on Briny Beach . "I imagine this will do," he said.

"That's perfect," Vanilla said. "Frank should be watching from one of the windows of the hotel, unless of course Ernest has intercepted my message and is watching instead. In any case, when you're ready to meet him, you can throw the rock into the pond, and he'll see the ripples and know you're on your way."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Amy asked.

"I'm afraid not," Vanilla said. "I have other errands to perform. While Shadow tries to resolve the situation in the sky, I will try to resolve the situation in the sea, and you'll have to resolve the situation here on land."

"Us alone?" Sonic asked. he meant something along the lines of, "Do you really think three children can accomplish all this by themselves?" and his siblings were quick to translate.

"Look at yourselves," Vanilla said, and gestured toward the pond. The Hedges stood up and stepped close to the water's edge, and leaned over the pond so their reflections appeared in front of the roof of the hotel. "When your parents died," Vanilla said, "you were just a young boy, Tails. But you've matured. Those aren't the eyes of a young boy. They're the eyes of someone who has faced endless hardship. And look at you, Amy. You have the look of an experienced researcher-not just the young reader who lost her parents in a fire. And Sonic, you're standing on your own two feet, and so many of your teeth are growing in that they don't appear to be of such unusual size, as they were when you were a baby, and I bet your faster on your feet now. You're not children anymore, Hedges. You're volunteers, ready to face the challenges of a desperate and perplexing world. You must go to the Hotel Denouement, and Shadow must go to the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, and I must go to a coral formation of dubious quality where an inflatable raft should be waiting. But if Shadow manages to construct a net big enough to capture all those eagles, and I manage to contact Captain Charmy Widdershins and have him meet me at a certain clump of seaweed, we'll be here on Thursday. Jet should manage to land his self-sustaining hot air mobile home on the roof, even with all of us aboard."

"Jet?" Tails said, remembering the man who had been so kind to them in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and his enormous invention that had carried him away from the Hedges. "He's safe?"

"I hope so, I heard he's now a volunteer" Vanilla said quietly, and stood up. She turned her face from the Hedges, and her voice seemed to tremble as she talked. "Don't worry about the brunch things, Hedges. One of my comrades has volunteered to clean up after our picnic. He's a wonderful gentleman. You'll meet him on Thursday, if all goes well. If all goes well-"

But she could not finish her sentence. Instead, she gave a little whimper, and her shoulders began to shake as the Hedges looked at one another. When someone is crying, of course,

the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them, so they will not be embarrassed. For a moment, the children could not choose between the noble activity of comforting a crying person and the noble activity of not embarrassing a crying person, but as Vanilla Snicket began to cry harder and harder they decided to comfort her. Tails clasped one of his hands. Amy put an arm around her shoulder. Sonic hugged Vanilla above the knees, which was as high as he could reach.

"Why are you crying?" Tails asked. "Why are you so distraught?"

"Because all will not go well," Vanilla said finally. "You may as well know that now, Hedges. These are dark days, as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night. Our errands may be noble, but we will not succeed. I suspect that before Thursday, I'll see your signal and know that all our hopes have gone up in smoke."

"But how will we signal?" Amy asked. "Which code should we use?"

"Any code you devise," Vanilla said. "We'll be watching the skies."

With that, she shook herself out of the children's comforting arms, and hurried away from the pond without another word to the siblings. Tails, Amy, and Sonic watched her figure get smaller and smaller as she ran up the lawn, perhaps on her way back to the taxicab, or to join up with another mysterious volunteer, until at last she disappeared over the slope. For a moment none of the children said a word, and then Sonic reached down and picked up the parcels.

"Change?" she asked.

"I guess so," Tails said with a sigh. "It seems a shame to waste all this food, but I can't eat any more brunch."

"Perhaps the volunteer who is cleaning it up will bring it to someone else," Amy said. "Perhaps," Tails agreed. "There's so much about V.F.D. that remains a mystery."

"Perhaps we'll learn more when we're flaneurs," Amy said. "If we observe everything around us, perhaps some of these mysteries will become clear. I hope so."

"I hope so, too," Tails said.

"Also hope so," Sonic said, and the Hedges said no more. Leaving their brunch behind, they ducked behind the tree Vanilla had suggested, and held up the picnic blanket as a sort of curtain, so each child could change into a concierge disguise in relative privacy. Tails buckled a shiny silver belt with the words HOTEL DENOUEMENT printed in large, black letters all the way around it, and hoped that he would be able to tell the difference between Frank and his treacherous brother Ernest. Amy adjusted her stiff, round hat, which had a firm elastic band that tucked under the chin, and hoped she would know which of the guests were volunteers and which were villains. And Sonic slipped his fingers into the clean white

gloves, surprised that Frank had managed to find them in such a small size, and hoped that she would be able to investigate the impostor posing as Jacques Snicket.

When the three children were all wearing their uniforms, they walked back to the edge of the pond and put on the last part of their disguises: three enormous pairs of sunglasses, reminding them of a disguise Count Eggman had worn when pretending to be a detective. The sunglasses were so large that they covered not only their eyes but a great portion of their faces-Amy could even wear his regular glasses underneath them without anyone noticing. As they gazed through the sunglasses at their own reflections, they wondered if the disguises were enough to keep them out of the hands of the authorities long enough to solve all the mysteries that surrounded them, and they wondered if it was true what Vanilla Snicket had said, that they weren't children anymore, but volunteers ready to face the challenges of a desperate and perplexing world. The Hedges hoped so. But when Tails took the stone in his gloved hand, and threw it out into the middle of the pond, they wondered if their hopes would sink in the same way. They watched as the surface of the pond rippled, disrupting the reflection of the hotel. The children watched the shingles of the roof turn into a blur, and they watched the word "Denouement" disappear as if it were written on a piece of paper someone was crumpling in their hand. They watched each row of windows melt together, and they watched all the flowers and moss dissolve into nothing as the stone sank deeper and deeper into the pond, and the circular ripples spread further and further across the reflection. The Hedge orphans watched this reflected world disappear, and wondered if their hopes would also disappear, into the strange, rippling world of the Hotel Denouement and _eht_ _lla_

 _.edisni dppb yal that srerces dna seiretsym._

R

 **Three**

 _There_ are places where the world is quiet, but the enormous lobby of the Hotel Denouement was not one of them. On the day the Hedges walked up the stairs through the white fog from the funnel and entered the large, curved archway marked _ECNARTC_ -or when reflected in the enormous pond, entrance-the lobby was bustling with activity. As Vanilla Snicket had predicted, the Hedges were able to pass unnoticed in the hotel, because everyone was far too busy to notice anything. Guests were lined up in front of a huge reception desk- which for some reason had the number 101 emblazoned on the wall above it- so they could check into the hotel and go to their rooms to freshen up. Bellboys and bellgirls were loading piles of luggage onto carts and rolling them toward the elevators-which for some reason had the number 118 emblazoned on their doors-so they could drop off the suitcases in the guests' rooms and collect their tips. Waiters and waitresses were bringing food and drink to people who were sitting on the chairs and benches of the lobby, waiting for

refreshment. Taxi drivers were ushering guests into the lobby to join the line, and dogs were dragging their owners out of the lobby to take walks. Confused tourists were standing around looking quizzically at maps, and rambunctious children were playing hide-and-seek among the potted plants. A man in a tuxedo was sitting at a grand piano emblazoned with the number 152, playing tinkly tunes to amuse anyone who cared to listen, and members of the cleaning staff were discreetly polishing the green wooden floors etched with the number 123, for anyone who cared to see their feet reflected with every step. There was an enormous fountain in one corner of the room, releasing a cascade of water that ran over the number 131 in a shiny, smooth wall, and there was an enormous woman in the opposite corner, standing under the number 176 and shouting a man's name over and over in an increasingly annoyed tone of voice. The Hedges tried to be flaneurs as they walked across the chaos of the lobby, but there was so much to observe, and all of it was moving so quickly, that they wondered how they could even get started on their noble errand.

"I had no idea this place would be so busy," Tails said, blinking at the lobby from behind his sunglasses.

"How in the world will we be able to observe the impostor," Amy wondered, "among all these possible suspects?"

"Frank first," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "The first step in our errand should be locating our new employer. If he saw our signal from that open window, he should be expecting us."

"Unless his villainous brother Ernest is expecting us instead," Amy said. "Or both," Sonic said.

"Why do you suppose there are so many numbers-" Tails started to ask, but before he could finish her question a fox came bounding up to them. He was very tall and skinny, and his arms and legs stuck out at odd angles, as if he were made of drinking straws instead of flesh and bone. He was dressed in a uniform similar to that of the Hedges', but with the word MANAGER printed in fancy script over one of the pockets of his coat.

"You must be the new concierges," he said. "Welcome to the Hotel Denouement. I'm one of the managers."

"Frank," Tails asked, "or Ernest?"

"Exactly," the man said, and winked at them. "I'm so happy the three of you are here, even if one of you is unusually short, because we're unusually short-handed. I'm so busy you'll have to figure out the system for yourself."

"System?" Amy asked.

"This place is as complicated as it is enormous," said Frank, or perhaps Ernest, "and vice versa. I'd hate to think what would happen if you didn't understand it."

The Hedges looked carefully at their new manager, but his face was utterly unfathomable, a word which here means "blank, so the Hedges could not tell if he was giving them a friendly warning or a sinister threat." "We'll try our best," Tails said quietly.

"Good," said the manager, leading the children across the enormous lobby. "You'll be at our guests' beck and call," he continued, using a phrase which meant that the guests would boss the Hedges around. "If anyone and everyone staying here asks for assistance, you'll immediately volunteer to help them."

"Excuse me, sir," interrupted one of the bellboys. He was holding a suitcase in each hand and wearing a confused expression on his face. "This luggage arrived in a taxi, but the driver said the guest wouldn't arrive until Thursday. What should I do?"

"Thursday?" said Frank or Ernest with a frown. "Excuse me, concierges. I don't suppose I have to tell you how important this is. I'll be right back."

The manager followed the bellboy into the crowd, leaving the Hedges standing alone next to a large, wooden bench marked with the number 128. Amy ran his hand along the bench, which was etched with rings, from people setting down glasses without using coasters. "Do you think we were talking to Frank," Amy said, "or Ernest?"

"I don't know," Tails said. "He used the word 'volunteer.' Maybe that was some sort of a code."

"Thursinterest," Sonic said, which meant "He knew that Thursday was important." "That's true," Amy said, "but is it important to him because he's a volunteer or a villain?"

Before either Hedge brother could hazard a guess, a phrase which here means "attempt to answer Amy's question," the tall, skinny fox manager reappeared at their sides. "You must be the new concierges," he said, and the children realized that this was the other brother. "Welcome to the Hotel Denouement."

"You must be Ernest," Tails tried. "Or Frank," Sonic said.

"Yes," the manager said, although it was not at all clear with whom he was agreeing. "I'm very grateful you three are here. The hotel is quite busy at the moment, and we're expecting more guests to arrive on Thursday. Now, you'll be stationed at the concierge desk, number 175, right over here. Follow me."

The children followed him to the far wall of the lobby, where a large wooden desk sat under the number 175, which was painted over an enormous window. On the desk was a small lamp shaped like a frog, and out the window, the children could see the gray, flat horizon of the sea. "We've got a pond on one side of us," said Ernest, unless of course it was Frank, "and the sea on the other side. It doesn't sound very safe, and yet some people think this is a very safe place indeed." Frank, unless it was Ernest, looked around hurriedly and lowered his voice. "What do you think?"

Once again, the manager's face was unfathomable, and the children could not tell if his reference to a safe place made him a volunteer or a villain. "Hmm," Sonic said, which is often a safe answer, even though it is not really an answer at all.

"Hmm," Frank or Ernest said in response. "Now then, let me explain how this hotel is organized."

"Excuse me, sir," said a bellgirl, whose face could not be seen behind the pile of newspapers she was carrying. "The latest edition of _The Daily Punctilio_ has arrived."

"Let me see," said either Ernest or Frank, plucking a copy from the top of the pile. "I heard that Geraldine Julienne has written an update on the Hedge case."

The Hedge orphans froze, scarcely daring to look at one another, let alone the volunteer or villain who was standing beside them reading the headline out loud, "'Hedges rumored to return to the city,'" he said. "'According to information recently discovered by this reporter when opening a cookie, Troy, Amelia, and Sammy Hedge, the notorious murderers of renowned actor Count Redman, are returning to the city, perhaps to commit more vicious murders or to continue their recent hobby of arson. Citizens are advised to watch for these three bloodthirsty children, and to report them to the authorities if they are spotted. If they are not spotted, citizens are advised to do nothing.'" The manager turned to the Hedges, his face as unfathomable as ever. "What do you think of that, concierges?"

"That's an interesting question," Amy replied, which is another very safe answer.

"I'm glad you find it interesting," Ernest or Frank replied, which was an equally safe answer to Amy's safe answer. Then he turned to the bellgirl. "I'll show you the newsstand in Room 168," he said, and disappeared with the newspapers into the crowd, leaving the Hedges alone, standing at the desk and staring out to sea.

"I think that was Ernest," Tails said. "His comment about the hotel's safety sounded very sinister."

"But he didn't seem alarmed by the story in _The Daily Punctilio_ ," Amy said. "If Ernest is an enemy of V.F.D., he'd be on the watch for us. So that man was probably Frank."

"Maybe he just didn't recognize us," Tails said. "After all, few people recognize Count Eggman when he's in disguise, and his disguises aren't much better than ours. Maybe we look more like concierges than Hedges."

"Or maybe we don't look like Hedges at all," Amy said. "As Vanilla said, we're not children anymore."

"Nidiculous," Sonic said, which meant something like, "I think I'm still a child."

"That's true," Amy admitted, smiling down at her brother, "but the older we get, the less likely it is that we'll be recognized."

"That should make it easier to do our errands," Tails said.

"What do you mean by that?" asked a familiar voice, and the Hedges saw that either Frank or Ernest had returned.

"What my associate meant," Amy said, thinking quickly, "is that it would be easier for us to start our work as concierges if you explained how the hotel is organized."

"I just said I would do that," said Frank in an annoyed voice, or Ernest in an irritated one. "Once you understand how the Hotel Denouement works, you'll be able to perform your errands as easily as you would find a book in a library. And if you can find a book in a library, then you already know how this hotel works."

"Expound," Sonic said.

"The Hotel Denouement is organized according to the Dewey Decimal System," Frank or Ernest explained. "That's the same way books are organized in many libraries. For instance, if you wanted to find a book on German poetry, you would begin in the section of the library marked 800, which contains books on literature and rhetoric. Similarly, the eighth story of this hotel is reserved for our rhetorical guests. Within the 800 section of a library, you'd find books on German poetry labeled 831, and if you were to take the elevator up to the eighth story and walk into Room 831, you'd find a gathering of German poets. Understand?"

"I think so," said Amy. All three Hedges had spent enough time in libraries to be familiar with the Dewey Decimal System, but even Amy's vast experience in research did not mean he had committed the entire system to memory. It is not necessary, of course, to memorize the Dewey Decimal System in order to use a library, as most libraries have catalogs, in which all of the books are listed on cards or on a computer screen to make them easier to find. "Where can we find the catalog for the Hotel Denouement's services?"

"Catalog?" repeated either Frank or Ernest. "You shouldn't need a catalog. The entire 100 section of a library is dedicated to philosophy and psychology, and so is the first story of our hotel, from the reception desk, which is labeled 101 for the theory of philosophy, to the concierge desk, which is labeled 175 for the ethics of recreation and leisure, to the couches over there, which are labeled 135, for dreams and mysteries, in case our guests want to take a nap or conceal something underneath the sofa cushions. The second story is the 200s, for religion, and we have a church, a cathedral, a chapel, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a shrine, a shuffleboard court, and Room 296, which is currently occupied by a somewhat cranky rabbi.

The third story is the social sciences, where we have placed our ballrooms and meeting rooms; the fourth story is dedicated to language, so most of our foreigners stay there. The 500s are dedicated to mathematics and science, and the sixth story is dedicated to technology, from the sauna in Room 613, which stands for the promotion of health, to Room 697, which is where we keep the controls for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Now, if the seventh story stands for the arts, what do you think we would find in Room 792, which stands for stage presentations?"

Tails wanted to tie his bangs up in a ribbon to help him think, but he was afraid of being recognized. "A theater?" he said.

"You've obviously visited a library before," the manager said, although the children could not tell if he was complimenting them or getting suspicious. "I'm afraid that's not true of all of our guests, so when they are in need of any of our services, they ring for a concierge instead of wandering around the hotel by themselves. In the next day or so, you'll probably walk through every section of the hotel, from the astronomy observatory in Room 999 to the employees' quarters in the basement, Room 000."

"Is that where we sleep?" Amy asked.

"Well, you're on duty twenty-four hours a day," Ernest said, or perhaps it was Frank. "But the hotel gets very quiet at night, when the guests go to sleep, or stay up all night reading. You can nap behind the desk, and when someone rings for you it will serve as an alarm clock."

Frank stopped talking, or perhaps it was Ernest, and quickly looked around the room before leaning in close to the Hedges. The three siblings nervously looked back at Ernest through their sunglasses, or maybe it was Frank. "Your positions as concierges," he said in his unfathomable tone, "are excellent opportunities for you to quietly observe your surroundings. People tend to treat the hotel staff as if they are invisible, so you will have the chance to see and hear quite a lot of interesting things. However, you should remember that you will also have many opportunities to be observed. Do I make myself clear?"

This time it was Tails who needed to give a safe answer. "Hmm," he said. "That's an interesting question."

Either Frank or Ernest narrowed his eyes at the oldest Hedge, and seemed about to say something when the Hedges suddenly heard some loud, piercing ringing sounds. "Aha!" the manager cried. "Your work has begun!"

The siblings followed Ernest or Frank around to the other side of the desk, and Frank or Ernest pointed to a vast network of tiny bells, each no larger than a thimble, which lined the back of a desk where knobs for drawers might otherwise be. Each bell had a number on it, from 000 to 999, with one extra bell that had no number at all. This extra bell was ringing, along with the bell numbered 371 and the bell numbered 674.

"Ring!" cried either Ernest or Frank. "Ring! I shouldn't have to tell you the bell's your signal. We can't keep our guests waiting for even an instant. You can tell which guest is ringing by the number on the bell. If the number written on the bell was 469, for example, you would know that one of our Portuguese guests required assistance. Are you paying attention? The bell marked 674 indicates our associates in the lumber industry, as the number 674 means lumber processing or wood products in the Dewey Decimal System. We can't make enemies out of important guests! The number 371 indicates educational guests. Please be nice to them, too, although they're much less important. Respond to all of our guests whenever you hear that ring!"

"But what does that unmarked bell refer to?" Amy asked. "The Dewey Decimal System doesn't go higher than 999."

The manager frowned, as if the middle Hedge had given him the wrong answer. "That's the rooftop sunbathing salon," he said. "People who sunbathe aren't usually interested in library science, so they're not picky about the salon's location. Now, get moving!"

"But where shall we go first?" Tails said. "Guests have requested assistance in three places at once."

"You'll have to split up, of course," Frank or Ernest replied, as unfathomably as ever. "Each concierge will choose a guest and hurry to their location. Take the elevators-they're at 118, for force and energy."

"Excuse me, sir," said another bellboy, tapping Ernest or Frank on the shoulder. "There's a banker on the phone who wants to speak to one of the managers right away."

"I'd better get to work," the manager said, "and so should you, concierges. Off with you!" "Off with you" is a phrase used by people who lack the courtesy to say something more

polite, such as "If there's nothing else you require, I must be going," or "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please," or even "Excuse me, but I believe you have mistaken my home for your own, and my valuable belongings for yours, and I must ask you to return the items in question to me, and leave my home, after untying me from this chair, as I am unable to do it myself, if it's not too much trouble." The children were not pleased to be dismissed so rudely, nor were they pleased to learn that their employment as concierges would involve such a complicated organizational method in an immense and confusing hotel. They were not pleased that they had not been able to discern which manager was Frank and which was Ernest, and they were not pleased to learn that _The Daily Punctilio_ was alerting the city's citizens to the Hedges' arrival, and that someone might recognize them at any moment and have them arrested for crimes they had not committed. But most of all, the Hedges were not pleased by the notion of splitting up and doing separate errands in this perplexing hotel. They had hoped to perform their duties as concierges and flaneurs together, and with each step toward the elevators they grew more and more unhappy at the idea of leaving one another behind.

"I'll go to the rooftop sunbathing salon," Tails said, trying to be brave. "Amy, why don't you take Room 674, and Sonic, you can take Room 371. We'll all meet up at the concierge desk when we're done."

"We'll be able to observe more this way," Amy said hopefully. "With the three of us on three separate stories, we can find the impostor much more quickly."

"Unsafe," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "I'd rather not find the impostor if I'm all by myself."

"You'll be safe, Sonic," Amy said. "This hotel is just like a large library." "Yes," Tails said. "And what's the worst thing that can happen in a library?"

The two younger Hedges did not answer her, and the three concierges stood in silence for a few moments, gazing at a small sign posted near the elevators' sliding doors. When one pair of doors finally opened, the children stepped inside and pressed the appropriate buttons

for their guests' locations, and as the small elevator began to rise, the children remembered the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue , which it had been necessary to climb up and down several times. The Hedges had learned the worst thing that could happen in an elevator shaft, which was being thrown down one by a villainous girlfriend. The Hedges had learned the worst thing that could happen at a lumbermill, which was being forced to cause a violent accident through the sinister power of hypnotism. And the Hedges had learned the worst thing that could happen at a school, which was meeting some dear friends, only to have them dragged away in a long, black automobile. The orphans learned what the worst thing was at a herpetologist's house, and what the worst thing was in a small town, and at a hospital, and at a carnival, and at the peak of a mountaintop, and in a submarine, and a cave, and within the currents of a rushing stream, and inside the trunk of a car and in the middle of a lake and in a pit full of lions and in a secret passageway and many, many other sinister places they preferred not to think about at all, and throughout all these perils they had encountered, and the countless other perils besides, they had always found a library of some sort or another, where the children managed to discover the crucial information necessary to save their skins, a phrase which here means "keep them alive for the next terrible chapter in their lives." But now the Hedges' new home was a library-a strange one, of course, but a library nonetheless-and as the elevator took them silently through the library toward their separate destinations, they did not like to wonder what the worst thing was that could happen at a library, particularly after reading the first four words on the small, posted sign. In case of fire, the sign read, and as the Hedge orphans went their separate ways, they did not like to think of that at all.

R

As I'm sure you've noticed, most of the history of the Hedge orphans is organized sequentially, a word which here means "so that the events in the lives of Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge are related in the order in which they occurred." In the case of the next three chapters, however, the story is organized simultaneously, which means that you do not have to read the chapters in the order in which they appear. In chapter four, you may find the story of Tails Hedge's journey up to the rooftop sunbathing salon, and the unpleasant conversation he had occasion to overhear. In chapter five, you may read about Amy's experience with certain members of the lumber industry, and a sinister plot that was devised right in front of her nose. And in chapter six, you may see the result of my research into Sonic's dreadful visit to Room 371 and to a mysterious restaurant located on the ninth story.

But because all of them occur at the very same time, you need not read the chapters in the sequence four-five-six, but can read them in any order you choose. Or, more sensibly, you could simply skip all three chapters, along with the seven chapters that follow them, and find some other sequential or simultaneous thing with which to occupy your time.

R

 **Four**

 _When_ the elevator finally reached the roof, and the doors slid open to allow her to exit, Tails Hedge had two reasons to be grateful that his concierge disguise included sunglasses. For one thing, the rooftop sunbathing salon was very, very bright. The morning fog, so thick when the Hedges arrived on Briny Beach, had disappeared, and the rays of the afternoon sun beat down on the entire city, reflecting off every shiny object, from the glistening waters of the sea, which splashed against the opposite side of the hotel, to the surface of the pond, which had settled since Tails had thrown the stone. All along the edge of the roof were large, rectangular mirrors, tilted like the hotel itself, catching the blinding light of the afternoon sun and bouncing it onto the skin of the sunbathing guests. Ten sunbathers, their bare skin coated in thick, sticky lotion, lay without moving on shiny mats arranged around a heated swimming pool, which was so warm that clouds of steam were floating up from the surface. In a corner was an hedgehog attendant, his eyes covered in green sunglasses and his body covered in a long, baggy robe. He was holding two enormous spatulas, such as might be used to flip pancakes, and from time to time he would reach out with a spatula and flip over one of the sunbathers, so that their bellies and backs would be the same shade of brown. The spatulas, like the mirrors and the mats and the pool, reflected the light of the sun, and Tails was glad his eyes were shielded.

But there was another reason the eldest Hedge was grateful for the sunglasses, and it had to do with the person who was waiting impatiently by

the doors to the elevator. This person was also wearing sunglasses, although these were much more unusual. Instead of lenses, there were two large cones sticking out from the eyes, getting wider and wider until they stopped, as wide as dinner plates, several feet in front of the person's face. Such a pair of glasses might have concealed the identity of the person who was wearing them, but they were so ridiculous that Tails knew there could be only one person so obsessed with being fashionable that she would wear such ridiculous eyewear, and Tails was grateful that his own identity was concealed.

"Here you are at last," said Eudora Squalor. "I thought I'd never see you here."

"Pardon me?" Tails asked nervously.

"Are you deaf, concierge?" Eudora demanded. Her scornful frown was lined with silver lipstick, as if she had been drinking molten metal, and she pointed an accusing finger with a long, silver nail. The nails had been filed and carved into the familiar symbol of an eye. The letters were painted to match Eudora's sandals, which had long, frilly straps that ran around and around the notorious girlfriend's bare legs like centipedes. The rest of Eudora's outfit, I regret to say,

consisted of three large leaves of lettuce, attached to her body with tape. If you have ever seen the bathing garment known as the bikini, then you can guess where these pieces of lettuce were attached, and if you cannot guess then I advise you to ask someone of your acquaintance who is not as squeamish as I am about discussing the bodies of villainous women. "Glamorous people like myself don't have time to be nice to the deaf," she snarled. "I rang the concierge bell more than two minutes ago, and I've been waiting the entire time!"

"I can see the headline now," crowed another voice, '"unbelievably glamorous and beautiful woman complains about hotel service!' Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ see that!"

Tails was so relieved not to be recognized that he hadn't noticed who was standing next to Count Eggman's treacherous girlfriend. The weasel Geraldine Julienne was the irresponsible journalist who had printed so many lies about the Hedges, and he wasn't happy to see that the reporter had become one of Eudora's sycophants, a word which here means "people who enjoy flattering people who enjoy being flattered."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Tails said, in as professional a tone as he could muster. "The concierges are particularly busy today. What is it you require?"

"It's not what _I_ require," Eudora said, "it's what the adorable little girl in the pool requires." "I'm not an adorable little girl!" Yet another familiar voice came from the direction of the

heated pool, and Tails turned to see Sally Spats, a spoiled and unpleasant child the Hedges had first encountered at boarding school, who had gone on to join Count Eggman and Eudora Squalor in performing treacherous deeds. "I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!" she cried, emerging from a cloud of steam. She was wearing an outfit as ridiculous as Eudora's, though thankfully it wasn't as revealing. She had on a bright blue jacket, covered with shiny medals such as are given to people for military service, which was unbuttoned to reveal a white shirt that proclaimed the name of a sports team in curly blue letters. Stapled to the back of her jacket was a long, blue cape, and on her feet were a pair of bright blue boots with spurs, which are tiny wheels of spikes used to urge animals to move more quickly than they might otherwise prefer. She had a blue patch covering one of her eyes, and on her head was a blue triangular hat with a skull and crossbones printed on it-the symbol that pirates use while prowling the high seas. Sally Spats, of course, was not on the high seas, but had managed to drag a large, wooden boat to the rooftop sunbathing salon so she could prowl a high swimming pool. On the bow of the boat was an ornately carved figurehead, a word which here means "wooden statue of an octopus attacking a man in a diving suit," and there was a tall mast, stretching up toward the sky, which held a billowing sail that had the insignia of an eye matching the one on Count Eggman's ankle. The eldest Hedge stared for a moment at this hideous figurehead, but then turned his attention to Sally. The last time Tails had seen the unpleasant captain of this boat, she was dressed all in pink, and was announcing herself as a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian, but the eldest Hedge could hardly say whether being a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate was better or worse.

"Of course you are, darling," purred Eudora, and turned to Geraldine Julienne with a smile one mother might give another at a playground. "Sally has been a tomboy lately," she said, using an insulting term inflicted on girls whose behavior some people find unusual.

"I'm sure your daughter will grow out of it," Geraldine replied, who as usual was speaking into a microphone.

"Sally Spats is not my daughter," Eudora said haughtily. "I'd no sooner have children of my own than I would wear modest clothing."

"I thought you adopted three orphans," Geraldine said.

"When it was in," Eudora hurriedly added, using her usual word for "fashionable." "But orphans are out now."

"Then what's in?" asked Geraldine breathlessly.

"Planning cocktail parties in hotels, of course!" crowed Eudora. "Why else would I let a ridiculous woman like yourself interview me?"

"How wonderful!" cried Geraldine, who appeared not to realize she had just been insulted. "I can see the headline now: 'EUDORA SQUALOR, THE MOST GLAMOROUS PERSON EVER!' Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ see that! When they read about your career as an actress, financial advisor, girlfriend, and cocktail party hostess, they'll get so excited that some of them will probably have heart attacks!"

"I hope so," Eudora said.

"I'm sure my readers will want to know all about your stylish outfit," Geraldine said, holding her microphone under Eudora's chin. "Will you tell us something about those unusual glasses you're wearing?"

"They're sunoculars," Eudora said, patting her strange eyewear. "They're a combination of sunglasses and binoculars. They're very in, and this way I can watch the skies without getting the sun in my eyes-or the moon, if something should happen to arrive at night."

"Why would you want to watch the skies?" Geraldine asked curiously.

Eudora frowned, and Tails could tell that the stylish woman had let something slip, a phrase which here means "said something she wished she hadn't." "Because birdwatching is very in," she said unconvincingly, a word which here means "clearly telling a lie."

"Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ hear that!" gasped Geraldine. "Will all the guests at your cocktail party be wearing sunoculars?"

"No matter what the guests are wearing," Eudora said with a smirk, "they won't be able to see the surprises we have in store for them."

"What surprises?" Geraldine asked eagerly.

"If I told you what they were," Eudora said, "they wouldn't be surprises."

"Couldn't you give me a hint?" Geraldine asked.

"No," Eudora said.

"Not even a little one?" Geraldine asked. "No," Eudora said.

"Pretty please?" Geraldine whined. "Pretty please with sugar on top?"

Eudora's silver-coated lips curled thoughtfully. "If I give you a hint," she said, "you'll have to tell me something, too. You're a reporter, so you know all sorts of interesting information. Before I reveal my special hors d'oeuvres for Thursday's cocktail party, I want you to tell me something about a certain guest at this hotel. He's been lurking around the basement, plotting to spoil our party. His initials are J. S."

"Lurking around the basement?" Geraldine repeated. "But J. S. is so obviously-"

"Eudora!" Sally screamed from the swimming pool, interrupting at just the worst moment. "That concierge is just standing there, when he's supposed to be at my beck and call! he's nothing but a cakesniffer!"

Eudora turned to Tails, who was used to being called a cakesniffer after all this time. "What are you waiting for?" she snarled. "Go get whatever that darling little girl wants!"

Eudora twirled around and marched away, and Tails was glad to see that the villainous girlfriend's outfit had two more lettuce leaves than had been visible from the front. The eldest Hedge was sorry to stop performing his flaneur errands and begin his duties as a concierge, but he stepped to the edge of the swimming pool, walking carefully on the tilted roof of the hotel and peering into the clouds of steam. "What is it you want, miss?" he asked, hoping Sally would not recognize his voice.

"A harpoon gun, of course!" Sally said. "Countie said that I can't be a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate without a harpoon gun."

"Who's Countie?" Geraldine asked.

"Eudora's boyfriend," Sally said. "He thinks I'm the most darling, special little girl in the entire world. He said if I used my harpoon gun properly he would teach me how to spit like a real ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!"

"I can see the headline now," Geraldine said into her microphone. "'BALLPLAYING COWBOY SUPERHERO SOLDIER PIRATE LEARNS TO SPIT.'' Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ see that!"

"I'll fetch you a harpoon gun, miss." Tails promised, ducking to avoid the attendant's spatula, which was overturning a sunbathing woman.

"Stop calling me 'miss,' you cakesniffer!" Sally said. "I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!"

Fetching objects for people who are too lazy to fetch them for themselves is never a pleasant task, particularly when the people are insulting you, but as Tails walked back to the elevator and pressed the button for it to arrive, he was not thinking about Sally's atrocious behavior. he was too preoccupied, a word which here means "wondering what exactly Eudora Squalor and Sally Spats were doing at the Hotel Denouement." The two unsavory females knew full well about V.F.D. and the plans for Thursday's gathering, but the eldest Hedge did not believe for a minute that all they were planning was a cocktail party. As the doors slid open and Tails stepped inside, he wondered why Eudora was using her sunoculars to search the skies. he wondered what Sally wanted with a harpoon gun. he wondered how Eudora knew about the impostor J. S., who was apparently lurking around the basement of the hotel. But most of all, he wondered where Count Eggman-or, as Sally liked to call him, "Countie"-was hiding, and what treachery he was planning.

Tails was thinking so hard about his observations as a flaneur that it was only when the elevator doors shut that he remembered his errand as a concierge, and realized that he had no idea where to find a harpoon gun. Harpoon guns are not part of the usual equipment provided by a hotel, and the only time Tails had seen such a device was in Eudora Squalor's own hands, back when she was disguised as a policewoman at the Village of Fowl Devotees. Even if the Hotel Denouement had thought to keep such a thing in the building, Tails could not imagine where she might find it in the Dewey Decimal System without a catalog. he wished Amy were with her, as the only number of the Dewey Decimal System she knew by heart was 621, which labeled his favorite section, applied physics. With a glum sigh, the eldest Hedge pressed the button for the lobby.

"You're asking me for help?" cried either Frank or Ernest, when Tails managed to find him. The lobby of the Hotel Denouement was even more crowded than when the Hedges had arrived, and it took Tails a few minutes before she could find the familiar figure of the volunteer or his villainous brother. "I'm the one who needs help," he said. "An astonishing number of guests have arrived earlier than expected. I have no time to be a concierge helper."

"I realize that you're busy, sir," Tails said. he knew that calling a person "sir" can often help you get what you want, unless of course the person is a woman. "A guest has requested a harpoon gun, and I don't know where to find one. I wish the Hotel Denouement had a catalog."

"You shouldn't need a catalog," the manager said. "Not if you're who I think you are." Tails gasped, and either Frank or Ernest took one step closer to her. "Are you?" he asked.

"Are you who I think you are?"

Tails blinked behind his sunglasses. There are people in this world who say that silence is golden, which simply means that they prefer a calm and peaceful hush to the noise and clutter of the world. There is nothing wrong with such a preference, but sadly there are times when a calm and peaceful hush is simply not possible. If you are watching the sun set, for instance, silence may permit you to be alone with your thoughts as you gaze at the darkening landscape, but it may be necessary to make a loud noise to scare off any grizzly bears that may be approaching. If you are riding in a taxi, you might prefer silence so you can study your map in peace, but the occasion may require you to shout, "Please turn around! I think, they've driven through those hedges!" And if you have lost a loved one, as the Hedges did on the fateful day of a fire, you may wish very dearly for a long period of silence, so you

and your siblings can contemplate your puzzling and woeful situation, but you may find yourself tossed from one dangerous situation to another, and another, and another, so that you begin to think you will never find yourself in a calm and peaceful hush. As Tails stood in the lobby, he wanted nothing more than to be silent, so that he might further observe the man standing next to him, and discover if he was a volunteer, to whom he could say, "Yes, I'm Tails Hedge," or a villain, to whom he could say, "I'm sorry; I don't know what you're talking about." But he knew that he could not hope for a calm and peaceful hush in the chaos of Hotel Denouement, and so rather than remain silent he answered the manager's question as best he could.

"Of course I'm who you think I am," he said, feeling as if he were talking in code, although in a code he did not know. "I'm a concierge."

"I see," said Frank or Ernest unfathomably. "And who is requesting the harpoon gun?" "A young girl on the roof," Tails said.

"A young girl on the roof," the manager repeated with a sly smile. "Are you sure a harpoon gun should be given to a young girl on the roof? Are you going to anger her? Angry guests are the last thing we can afford in a hotel."

Tails did not know how to answer him, but fortunately this appeared to be one of the times when silence is in fact golden, because at his silence, Frank or Ernest gave the eldest Hedge another smile and then turned on his heel-a phrase which here means "turned around in a somewhat fancy manner"-and beckoned Tails to follow him to a far corner of the lobby, where she saw a small door marked 121. "This number stands for epistemology," he explained, using a word which here means "theories of knowledge" and looking hurriedly around the lobby as if he were being watched. "We thought it would be a good hiding place."

Frank or Ernest took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, which swung open with a quiet creak to reveal a small, bare closet. The only thing in the closet was a large, wicked-looking object, with a bright red trigger and four long, sharp hooks. The eldest Hedge recognized it from her stay in the Village of Fowl Devotees. he knew it was a harpoon gun, a deadly device that ought not to be in the hands of anyone, let alone Sally Spats. Tails did not want to touch it himself, but as the manager stood at the door gazing at him, he could think of no other choice, and carefully removed the device from the closet.

"Be very careful with this," the manager said in an unfathomable tone. "A weapon like this should only be in the hands of the right person. I'm grateful for your assistance, concierge. Not many people have the courage to help with a scheme like this."

Tails nodded silently, and silently took the heavy weapon from Frank or Ernest's hands. In silence he walked back to the elevators, his head spinning with his mysterious observations as a flaneur and his mysterious errand as a concierge, and in silence he stood at the sliding elevator doors, wondering which manager he had spoken to, and what precisely he had said to him in his coded, quiet response. But just before the elevator arrived, Tails' silence was shattered by an enormous noise.

The clock in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement is the stuff of legend, a phrase which here means "very famous for being very loud." It is located in the very center of the ceiling, at the very top of the dome, and when the clock announces the hour, its bells clang throughout the

entire building, making an immense, deep noise that sounds like a certain word being uttered once for each hour. At this particular moment, it was three o'clock, and everyone in the hotel could hear the booming ring of the enormous bells of the clock, uttering the word three times in succession: _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!_ As he boarded the elevator, the harpoon gun heavy and sinister in his gloved hands, Tails Hedge felt as if the clock were scolding him for his efforts at solving the mysteries of the Hotel Denouement. _Wrong!_ he had tried his best to be a flaneur, but hadn't observed enough to decode the scheme of Eudora Squalor and Sally Spats. _Wrong!_ he had tried to communicate with one of the hotel's managers, but had been unable to discover whether he was Frank or Ernest. And-most _Wrong! of all_ \- he was now taking a deadly weapon to the rooftop sunbathing salon, where it would serve some unknown, sinister purpose. With each strike of the clock, Tails felt wronger and wronger, until at last he reached her destination, and stepped out of the elevator. he dearly hoped his two siblings had found more success in their errands, for as he walked across the roof, avoiding a spatula as it flipped the guests on their mirrored mats, until at last she could hoist the harpoon gun into Sally's eager and ungrateful hands, all the eldest Hedge could think was that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

R

 **Five**

 _When_ the elevator reached the sixth story Amy bade good-bye to Tails and stepped out into a long, empty hallway The hallway was lined with numbered doors, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, and large ornamental vases, too large to hold flowers and too small to hold spies. On the floor was a smooth, gray carpet that muffled each of the middle Hedge's uncertain steps. Although Amy had never set foot in the Hotel Denouement before today, walking down the hallway gave him a familiar

feeling. It was the feeling she had whenever he entered a library with an important problem to solve, suspecting that somewhere within the library's collection of books was the perfect answer to whatever question was foremost on his mind. She had this feeling when she and his siblings were living just off Lousy Lane, and she solved the murder of Uncle Knuckles with crucial information he discovered in a herpetological library. She had this feeling when he and his siblings were deep in the ocean, and he managed to dilute the poison infecting Sonic by finding a significant fact in a mycological library belonging to Fiona, a young vixen who had broken Tails' heart. And as she stood in the hallway, gazing at all of the numbered doors that stretched out as far as his eyes could see, Amy Hedge had the feeling again. Hidden somewhere in this hotel, she was sure, was something or someone that could answer all the Hedges' questions, solve all of the Hedges' mysteries, and put an end at last to all the Hedges' woes. It was as if she could hear this answer calling to her, like a baby crying at the bottom of a damp well, or an alarm clock ringing underneath a heap of damp blankets.

Without a catalog, however, Amy had no idea where such a solution might be, so she made her way toward her concierge errand in Room 674, hoping that whatever she would observe as a flaneur might bring her closer to unraveling the Hedges' list of misfortunes.

When she stopped in front of the numbered door, however, it appeared that she was only adding another misfortune to this woeful list. Smoke was pouring out of the gap between the door and the floor, spreading out across the hallway like a sinister stain.

"Hello?" Amy called, knocking on the door.

"Hello yourself," called back a voice that sounded slightly familiar and utterly unconcerned. "Are you one of those concertinas?"

"I'm a concierge," Amy said, not bothering to explain that a concertina is a kind of accordion. "Can I be of assistance?"

"Of course you can be of assistance!" the voice called back. "That's why I rang for you!

Enter at once!"

Amy, of course, did not want to enter a room that was filled with smoke, but working, even for the purposes of secretly observing the mysteries of a hotel, usually means doing things you do not want to do, so the middle Hedge opened the door, releasing an enormous amount of smoke into the hallway, and took a few hesitant steps into the room. Through the smoke he could see a short figure, dressed in a suit of shiny green cloth, standing at the far end of the room, facing the window. Behind his back he held a cigar that was clearly responsible for all the smoke wafting past Amy into the hallway. But Amy did not care about the smoke. She hardly even noticed it. She merely stared in dismay at the person standing at the window, a person she had hoped he would never see again.

You have probably heard the tiresome expression "It's a small world," which people use to explain a coincidence. For instance, if you walk into an Italian restaurant and encounter a waiter you recognize, the waiter might cry, "It's a small world!" as if it were unavoidable that the two of you would be at the same restaurant at the same time. But if you've ever taken even the shortest of walks, you know the truth of the matter. It is not a small world. It is a large world, and there are Italian restaurants sprinkled all over it, employing waiters who have crucial messages for you and waiters who are trying to make sure you never receive them, and these pairs of waiters are engaged in an argument that began many years ago, when you were so young that it was not safe to feed you even the softest of gnocchi. The world is not small but enormous, and Amy had hoped that this enormous world was big enough that a guest of the Hotel Denouement employed in the lumber industry and staying in Room 674 would not be the horrid man who had employed him and his sisters at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. During their dreadful stay in Paltryville, the Hedges never saw the man's face, which was always covered by a cloud of smoke from his cigar, and they never learned the man's real name, which was so difficult to pronounce that he made everyone call him "Sir," but they learned plenty about his greedy and cruel behavior, and Amy was not happy to learn that this enormous world was going to treat her to another helping of Sir's selfishness.

"Well, don't just stand there!" Sir shouted. "Ask what you can do for me!" "What can I do for you, Sir?" Amy asked.

Sir whirled around, and the cloud around his head whirled around, too. "How did you know my name?" he asked suspiciously.

"The concierge didn't know your name," said another voice patiently, and Amy saw, through the smoke, a second person he had not noticed, sitting on the bed in a bathrobe with hotel denouement embroidered on the back. This cat was also familiar from the Hedges' days at Lucky Smells, although Amy did not know whether to be happy to see him or not. On one hand, Big had always been kind to the children, and although his kindness had not been enough to save them from danger, it is always a relief to discover there is a kind person in the room that you had not noticed previously. On the other hand, however, Amy was sorry to see that Big was still partners with Sir, who enjoyed bossing around Big almost as much as he did the Hedges. "I'm sure the concierge calls all the male guests in this hotel 'sir.'"

"Of course she does!" Sir shouted. "I'm not an idiot! Now then, concertina, we want to be taken to the sauna right away!"

"Yes sir," Amy said, grateful that either Frank or Ernest had mentioned that the sauna was in Room 613. A sauna is a room constructed out of wood and kept very, very hot, in which people can sit in steam, which is believed to be beneficial to one's health, and Amy would have found it very difficult to find such a room in the Hotel Denouement without a catalog. "The sauna should be down the hall, on the opposite side," Amy said. "If you gentlemen will follow me, I'll take you there."

"I'm sorry we made you come all the way to our rooms just to take us right down the hall," Big said.

"It's my pleasure," Amy said. As I'm sure you know, when people say, "It's my pleasure," they usually mean something along the lines of, "There's nothing on Earth I would rather do less," but the middle Hedge was hoping that he could learn why the Hedges' former guardian and his partner had journeyed from Paltryville to the Hotel Denouement.

"Let's go this very instant!" Sir shouted, marching out into the hallway.

"Don't you want to change into a bathing suit?" Big asked. "If you're fully clothed, you won't get the health benefits of the steam."

"I don't care about the health benefits of the steam!" Sir shouted. "I'm not an idiot! I just love the smell of hot wood!"

Big sighed, and followed Amy out of Room 674 and into the hallway. "I was hoping my partner would relax during our stay here," he said, "but I'm afraid he's taking a busman's holiday."

"Busman's holiday" is an expression which refers to when people do the same thing on vacation that they do in their everyday lives, such as plumbers who visit the Museum of Sinks, or villains who disguise themselves even on their days off. But Amy could not believe that these two men were merely vacationing in the Hotel Denouement, just two days before

V.F.D. was to gather. "Are you here on business?" she asked, hoping that Big would keep talking as they approached the sauna.

"Don't tell that concertina anything!" Sir cried, continuing to use the word for "accordion" instead of the word for "hotel employee." "She's supposed to be at our beck and call, not nosing around in our business like a spy!"

"Forgive me, Sir," Amy said, as calmly as he could. "We've arrived at the sauna."

Sure enough, Amy, Sir, and Big had arrived at Room 613, which had a mass of steam pouring out of the gap between the door and the floor, like a mirror image of Sir's cigar smoke pouring out of Room 674. "You can wait outside, concertina," said Sir. "We'll shout for you when we're ready to be escorted back to our room."

"We don't need to be escorted," Big said timidly, opening the door. Inside, Amy could see nothing but a mass of whirling steam. "It's just down the hallway. I'm sure the concierge has enough to do without waiting around for us."

"But someone has to hold my cigar!" Sir shouted. "I can't walk into a room full of steam with a head full of smoke! I'm not an idiot!"

"Of course not," Big said with a sigh, and walked into the sauna. Sir handed Amy the cigar and strode into the sauna before the cloud of smoke around his head could clear. Behind him, the door started to close, but Amy thought quickly and stuck out her foot. The door remained open just a crack, and as quietly as she could he swung the door back open and slipped inside, pausing to balance Sir's cigar on the rim of one of the ornamental vases. As she suspected, the steam was so thick inside the sauna that he could not see Sir or his partner, which meant the Paltryville citizens could not see him, either, while they sat and talked in the heated room. It was a flaneur's perfect opportunity to eavesdrop on a private conversation.

"I wish you could be more polite," Big said, his voice drifting through the steam. "There was no reason to accuse that concierge of being a spy."

"I was just trying to be cautious!" Sir said gruffly, a word which here means "in a tone that indicated he had no intention of being more polite." Amy heard the crinkle of his shiny suit, and imagined that the lumbermill owner was shrugging. "You're the one who said enemies might be lurking in this hotel!"

"That's what I was told in the letter I received," Big said. "According to J. S., we must be very cautious if we want to find the Hedges."

Amy was grateful that her amazed expression was hidden in the steam. The middle Hedge could not imagine why the mysterious impostor J. S. was helping Big find him and her brothers, and if it had not been so hot in the sauna she would have broken out in a cold sweat, a phrase which here means "felt very nervous about the conversation she was observing."

"I don't want to find the Hedges!" Sir said. "Those orphans were nothing but trouble for the lumbermill!"

"They weren't the cause of the trouble," Big said. "Count Eggman was. Don't you remember?"

"Of course I remember!" Sir cried. "I'm not an idiot! Count Eggman disguised himself as a rather attractive young lady, and worked with that sinister hypnotist to cause accidents in my mill! If the Hedges didn't have that fortune waiting for them in the bank, Eggman never would have done all that mischief! It's the orphans' fault!"

"I suppose you're right," Big said, "but I still would like to find them. According to

 _The Daily Punctilio_ , the Hedges are in a heap of trouble."

"According to _The Daily Punctilio_ ," Sir said, "the Hedges are murderers! For all we know, that bookworm with the eyeglasses could sneak up on us right here in the hotel and kill us to death!"

"The children aren't going to murder us," Big said, "although after their experiences at Lucky Smells I could hardly blame them. In fact, if I manage to find them, the first thing I'll do is give them my sincere apologies. Perhaps I can ask one of the concierges for a pair of binoculars. J. S. said they might be arriving by submarine, so I could watch for a periscope rising from the sea."

"I wish our room had a view of the pond instead," Sir said. "When I'm done with a cigar, I like to drop the butt into a calm body of water and watch the pretty ripples."

"I'm not sure that would be good for the pond," Big said.

"What do I care about the pond?" Sir demanded. "I have better things to do than worry about the environment. The Finite Forest is running low on trees, so business is bad for the lumbermill. The last big order we had was for building that horseradish factory, and that was a very long time ago. I'm hoping Thursday's cocktail party will be an excellent opportunity to do some business. After all, if it weren't for my lumber, this hotel wouldn't even exist!"

"I remember," Big said. "We had to deliver the lumber in the middle of the night. But Sir, you told me you never heard from that organization again."

"I didn't," Sir said, "until now. You're not the only one who gets notes from this fellow J.

S. I'm invited to a party he's hosting on Thursday night, and he said I should bring all my valuables. That must mean plenty of rich people will be there-rich people who might want to buy some lumber."

"Perhaps if the lumbermill becomes more successful," Big said, "we could pay our employees with money, instead of just gum and coupons."

"Don't be an idiot!" Sir said. "Gum and coupons is a fair deal! If you spent less time reading and more time thinking about lumber, you'd care more about money and less about people!"

"There's nothing wrong with caring about people," Big said quietly. "I care about you, Sir. And I care about the Hedges. If what J. S. wrote is true, then their parents-"

"Excuse me." The door of the sauna swung open, and Amy saw a tall, dim figure step into the steam.

"Is that my concertina?" Sir barked. "I told you to wait outside!"

"No, I'm one of the managers of the hotel," said either Frank or Ernest. "We do have a concertina available in Room 786, if you're interested in musical instruments. I'm sorry to interrupt your afternoon, but I'm afraid I must ask all guests to vacate the sauna. A situation has arisen that requires the use of this room. If you are interested in steam, there's quite a bit of it in Room-"

"I don't care about steam!" cried Sir. "I just like smelling hot wood! Where else can I smell hot wood, except in the sauna?"

"Room 547 is dedicated to organic chemistry," replied the manager. "There are all sorts of smelly things there."

Amy quickly opened the sauna door and pretended to walk inside. "I'd be happy to take our guests to Room 547," she said, hoping to observe the rest of Sir and Big's conversation.

"No, no," the manager said. "You're needed here, concierge. By a strange coincidence there happens to be a chemist standing in the hallway who would be happy to escort these two gentlemen."

"Oh, all right!" Sir said, and stomped out of the sauna, where a figure stood in a long, white coat and a mask such as surgeons or chemists wear over their noses and mouths. Sir reached down and picked up his cigar from the ornamental vase, restoring the cloud of smoke to his face just as the cloud of steam evaporated, and without another word he and his partner followed the chemist away from the sauna, leaving Amy alone with the volunteer or villain.

"Be very careful with this," said either Frank or Ernest, handing a large, rigid object to Amy. It was something flat and wide, rolled into a thick tube like a sleeping bag. "When it's unrolled, the surface is very sticky-so sticky that anything it touches becomes trapped. Do you know what this is called?"

"Flypaper," Amy said, remembering a book he had read about the adventures of an exterminator. "Is the hotel having an insect problem?"

"Our problem is not with insects," the manager said. "It's with birds. This is birdpaper. I need you to attach one end to the windowsill of this room, and dangle the rest outside, over the pond. Can you guess why?"

"To trap birds," Amy said.

"You're obviously very well-read," said Ernest or Frank, although it was impossible to tell whether he was impressed or disgusted with this fact. "So you know that birds can cause all sorts of problems. For instance, I've heard about a swarm of eagles that recently stole a great crowd of children. What do you think of that?"

Amy gasped. She knew, of course, exactly what he thought of the great swarm of eagles who kidnapped a troop of Snow Scouts while the Hedges were living on Mount Fraught . She thought it was horrid, but the face on the volunteer or villain was so unfathomable that the

middle Hedge could not tell if the manager thought so, too. "I think it's remarkable," Amy said finally, carefully choosing a word which here means either wonderful or horrible.

"That's a remarkable answer," replied either Frank or Ernest, and then Amy heard the manager sigh thoughtfully. "Tell me," he said, "are you who I think you are?"

Amy blinked behind her glasses, and behind the sunglasses that lay on top of them. Deciding on a safe answer to a question is like deciding on a safe ingredient in a sandwich, because if you make the wrong decision you may find that something horrible is coming out of your mouth. As Amy stood in the sauna, she wanted nothing more than to decide on a safe answer, such as "Yes, I'm Amy Hedge," if he were talking to Frank, or "I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about," if he were talking to Ernest. But she knew there was no way to tell if either of those answers was safe, so she opened her mouth and uttered the only other answer she could think of.

"Of course I'm who you think I am," he said, feeling as if he were talking in code, although in a code he did not know. "I'm a concierge."

"I see," said Frank or Ernest, as unfathomable as ever. "I'm grateful for your assistance, concierge. Not many people have the courage to help with a scheme like this."

Without another word, the manager left, and Amy was alone in the sauna. Carefully, she walked through the steam and felt her way to the window, which she managed to unlatch and open, swinging a shutter marked out over the pond. As will happen when a very hot room is exposed to cold air, the steam raced through the window and evaporated. With the steam gone, Amy could see the wooden walls and benches that comprised the sauna, and she only wished that everything were as clear in her own head as it was in Room 613. In silence, she attached one end of the birdpaper to the windowsill, her head spinning with her mysterious observations as a flaneur and her mysterious errand as a concierge, and in silence she dangled the rest outside, where it curved stiffly over the pond like a slide at a playground. In silence she gazed at this strange arrangement, and wondered which manager had requested such an odd task. But before she could leave the sauna, Amy's silence was shattered by an enormous noise.

The clock in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement is the stuff of legend, a phrase which here means "very famous for being very loud." It is located in the very center of the ceiling, at the very top of the dome, and when the clock announces the hour, its bells clang throughout the entire building, making an immense, deep noise that sounds like a certain word being uttered once for each hour. At this particular moment, it was three o'clock, and everyone in the hotel could hear the booming ring of the enormous bells of the clock, uttering the word three times in succession: _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong_! As she turned away from the sauna's open window and walked back down the hall toward the elevator doors, Amy Hedge felt as if the clock were scolding her for her efforts at solving the mysteries of the Hotel Denouement _. Wrong!_ She had tried her best to be a flaneur, but hadn't observed enough to know exactly what Sir and Big were doing at the hotel. _Wrong_! She had tried to communicate with one of the hotel's managers, but had been unable to discover whether he was Frank or Ernest. And- most _Wrong! of all_ -she had performed his errand as a concierge, and now a strip of birdpaper was dangling out of the Hotel Denouement, where it would serve some unknown, sinister purpose. With each strike of the clock, Amy felt wronger and wronger, and as she stepped inside the small elevator, she frowned in thought. She dearly hoped her two siblings had found

more success in their errands, for as she walked through the sliding doors and pressed the button to return to the lobby, all the middle Hedge could think was that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Chapter 6

 _When_ the elevator reached the third story, Sonic bid good-bye to his siblings and stepped out into a long, empty hallway. Numbered doors lined the hallway, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, as well as large, ornamental vases that were taller than Sonic but not nearly as charming. The youngest Hedge walked on the smooth, grey carpet in nervous, uncertain steps. Pretending to be a concierge in order to be a flaneur, in the hopes of unraveling a mystery unfolding in an enormous, perplexing hotel, was a difficult enough task for his older siblings, but it was particularly difficult for someone just growing out of babyhood. Over the past few months, Sonic Hedge had improved her walking abilities, adopted a more standard vocabulary, and even learned how to cook, but she was still unsure whether she could successfully pass for a hotel professional. As she approached the guests who had rung for a concierge, she decided that she would adopt a taciturn demeanor, a phrase which here means "only communicate when absolutely necessary, so as not to call attention to her youth and relative inexperience in employment."

When Sonic reached Room 371 he thought at first there had been some mistake. Down in the lobby, either Frank or Ernest had told the Hedges that educational guests were staying in that particular room, but the youngest Hedge could not imagine what educational purpose could explain the unearthly sounds coming from behind the door, unless perhaps a teacher was giving a class on how to torture a small animal. Someone-or something-in Room 371 was making dreadful squeaks, strange moans, piercing whistles, irritating shrieks, mysterious mutterings, and, suddenly, a melodic hum or two, and the sounds were so loud that it was a moment before anyone heard Sonic's gloved fists knocking on the door.

"Who dares interrupt a genius when he's rehearsing?" said a voice that was loud, booming, and strangely familiar.

"Concierge," Sonic called.

" _Concierge,"_ the voice mimicked back to Sonic, in a high, squealing tone that the Hedge recognized instantly, and to his dismay the door opened and there stood a person he had hoped he would never encounter again.

If you have ever worked someplace and then, later, not worked there, then you know there are three ways you can leave a job: you can quit, you can be fired, or you can exit by mutual agreement. "Quit," as I'm sure you know, is a word which means that you were disappointed with your employer. "Fired," of course, is a word which means that your employer was disappointed with you. And "exit by mutual agreement" is a phrase which means that you wanted to quit, and your employer wanted to fire you, and that you ran out of the office, factory, or monastery before anyone could decide who got to go first. In any case, no matter which method you use to leave a job, it is never pleasant to run into a former employer, because it reminds both of you of all the miserable time you spent working together. I once threw myself down a flight of stairs rather than face even one moment with a milliner, at whose shop I quit working after discovering the sinister truth about her berets, only to find that the paramedic who repaired my fractured arm was a man who had fired me from a job playing accordion in his orchestra after only two and half performances of a certain opera. It would be difficult to say whether Sonic ended his brief stint-a word which here means "dreadful period of time"-working as an administrative assistant at Prufrock Preparatory School by quitting, getting fired, or exiting by mutual agreement, as he and his siblings were removed from the boarding school after a scheme of Count Eggman's almost succeeded, but it was still unpleasant to be face-to-face with Vice Principal Router after all this time.

"What do you want?" Router demanded, brandishing the violin that had been making all that dreadful noise. Sonic was not pleased to see that Router's four pigtails, which were quite short when he had first made the vice principal's acquaintance, had grown into long, stringy braids, and that he still liked to wear a necktie decorated with pictures of snails.

"You rang," Sonic said, as taciturnly as he could.

" _You rang_ ," Router mimicked immediately. "Well, so what if I did? Ringing for you is no excuse for interrupting me while I'm practicing the violin. I have a very important violin recital on Thursday, and I plan on rehearsing every moment until then."

"Please, boss," said another familiar voice, and Router turned around, his greasy braids swinging behind him. Sonic saw, to his dismay, that Router was sharing Room 371 with two other figures from the Hedges' past. "You said we could stop for a lunch break," continued Mr. Bean Remora, who had been Tails' teacher at Prufrock Preparatory School, although it would be difficult to say exactly what kind of teacher he was, as all he liked to do was tell short, pointless stories, and eat banana after banana, occasionally smearing the yellow pulp all over his mustache, which was as dark and thick as a gorilla's thumb.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a dekagram of rice," said Mrs. Mina Bass, who had been Amy' teacher. It was clear that her enthusiasm for measuring things according to the metric system had remained the same, but the youngest Hedge noticed that her appearance had changed somewhat. On top of her shaggy, purple hair was a small blond wig, like a snowcap on the top of a mountain peak, and she was wearing a small, narrow mask with two tiny holes for her eyes. "I've heard there's a wonderful Indian restaurant in Room 954."

Normally, Sonic would have replied with "Andiamo," which was his way of saying, "I'd be happy to take you there," but he was afraid that her manner of speaking would give away his true identity, so instead he continued his taciturn demeanor by giving the three guests a little bow, and gesturing down the hallway with one of her gloves.

Vice Principal Router looked disappointed, but then gave Sonic a simpering glance and mimicked his gestures in an insulting way, proving he could mock someone even if they didn't speak.

"Don't you think you should bring your loot, Mrs. Mina Bass?" asked Mr. Bean Remora, pointing to the far wall of Room 371.

"No, no," Mrs. Mina Bass said quickly, her eyes blinking nervously through the holes in the mask. "It'll be safer in the room."

Sonic tilted his head so she could stare past the teacher's knees, and made his first important observation as a flaneur. Piled on a table in the hotel room, right near a window overlooking the sea, was a large, bulky pile of large, bulky bags, each with the words PROPERTY OF MULCTUARY MONEY MANAGEMENT stamped on them in stern black ink. The youngest Hedge could not imagine why Mrs. Mina Bass was in possession of something from the bank where Mr. Silver Poe worked, but with two teachers and one vice principal waiting impatiently in the hallway, he had no time to stop and think. With another taciturn gesture, he quickly led the guests toward the elevator, grateful that Mrs. Mina Bass knew the location of the restaurant. The youngest Hedge would have had no idea how to find an Indian restaurant in the Hotel Denouement without a catalog.

"I'm very excited about my recital," Vice Principal Router said, as the small elevator began its journey to the ninth story. "I'm sure all of the music critics at the cocktail party will love my performance. As soon as I'm recognized as a genius, I can finally quit my job at Prufrock Prep!"

"How do you know there will be music critics at the party?" Mr. Bean Remora asked. "My invitation just said there'd be an all-you-can-eat banana buffet."

"Mine didn't say anything about music critics, either," Mrs. Mina Bass said. "It just says that there's a party in celebration of the metric system, and that I should bring as many valuables as possible so they could be measured. As a teacher, I don't earn enough money to purchase any valuables, so I had to resort to a life of crime."

" _I had to resort to a life of crime_ ," Router mimicked. "I can't believe a genius like myself was invited to the same party as you two. Eudora Squalor and her boyfriend must have accidentally mailed you those invitations."

Sonic's eyes narrowed in thought behind his enormous sunglasses. Eudora Squalor's boyfriend, of course, was none other than Count Eggman. After so much time struggling against his villainous schemes, the youngest Hedge was not surprised to hear that Eggman was planning further treachery, but he could not imagine why he was luring his former employer to the hotel. he would have loved to continue his observations as a flaneur, but as the elevator came to a stop, he had to return to his duties as a concierge, and utter at least one taciturn word.

"Nine," he said.

" _Nine_ ," Router mimicked, and pushed his way to the front so he could exit the elevator first. Sonic followed, and quickly guided the three guests to the door numbered 954, which he opened with a silent flourish.

"Can I help you?" asked a wavering voice, and Sonic was astonished to recognize yet another person from the Hedges' past. He was a very old monkey, wearing very tiny glasses, each lens scarcely larger than a green pea. When the children had first met this monkey, he had not been wearing a hat of any kind, but today he had wrapped a length of cloth around his head and secured it in place with a shiny red jewel. Sonic remembered such a turban on the head of Count Eggman when he had disguised himself as a gym teacher, but he could not guess why such a thing would be worn by the man the Hedges had met at Heimlich Hospital .

" _Can I help you?"_ Router mimicked. "Of course you can help us! We're starving!" "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion," said Khan, squinting through his glasses. "It won't be a sad occasion if you feed us," Mr. Bean Remora said.

Kahn frowned, as if Mr. Bean Remora had given the wrong response, but he quickly ushered the three guests to a wooden table in the otherwise deserted restaurant. "We are proud to serve a wide variety of Indian dishes," he said, handing out menus and pouring everyone a glass of water. "The culinary history of the region is quite interesting, actually. When the British-"

"I'll have ten grams of rice," Mrs. Mina Bass interrupted, "one tenth of a hectogram of shrimp vindaloo, a dekagram of chana aloo masala, one thousand centigrams of tandoori salmon, four samosas with a surface area of nineteen cubic centimeters, five deciliters of mango lassi, and a sada rava dosai that's exactly nineteen centimeters long."

Sonic hoped Kahn would talk about some of the dishes Mrs. Mina Bass had ordered, so his observations as a flaneur might also improve his cooking skills, but he merely wrote down her order without comment and turned to Mr. Bean Remora, who was frowning at the menu.

"I'll have forty-eight orders of fried bananas," he said, after much thought. "Interesting choice," Kahn commented. "And you, sir?"

"A bag of candy!" Vice Principal Router demanded. Sonic had almost forgotten that her former employer enjoyed demanding candy from anyone he could.

"Candy is not a traditional Indian dish," Kahn said. "If you're not sure what to order, allow me to recommend the combination plate."

" _Allow me to recommend the combination plate!_ " Router mimicked, glaring at Kahn. "Never mind. I won't eat anything! It's probably dangerous to eat candy from foreigners!"

Hal did not reply to this bout of xenophobia-a word for a fear or disgust of foreign cultures that Jerome Vector Squalor had taught the Hedges a while ago-but merely nodded. "Your lunches will be ready shortly," he said. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."

" _I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything_ ," Router mimicked immediately, as Kahn walked through a pair of swinging doors. With a sigh, he moved his water glass off his placemat and onto the wooden table, where it was sure to leave a ring, and turned to the two teachers. "That foreigner's head reminds me of that nice man Coach Genghis."

"Nice man?" Mr. Bean Remora asked shocked. "If I remember correctly, he was a notorious villain in disguise."

Mrs. Mina Bass reached up and nervously adjusted her wig. "Just because someone is a criminal," she said, "does not mean they're not a nice person. Besides, if you're on the run from the law, you're bound to get cranky from time to time."

"Speaking of running from the law-" Mr. Bean Remora said, but the vice principal cut off his sentence with a glare.

"We'll talk about that later," he said quickly, and then turned to Sonic. "Concierge, go get us some napkins," he said, clearly inventing an excuse to get the youngest Hedge out of earshot. "Just because I'm not eating doesn't mean I can't get food on my chin!"

Sonic nodded taciturnly, and walked toward the swinging doors. As a flaneur, he was sorry to halt his observations, particularly when the guests of Room 371 seemed about to discuss something important. But as a budding gourmand-a phrase which here means "young boy with a strong interest in cooking"-he was eager to get a look at a restaurant kitchen. Ever since Justice Tikal Strauss had taken the Hedges to the market in order to buy ingredients to make puttanesca sauce, Sonic had been interested in the culinary arts, although it was only recently that he had matured enough to develop this interest. If you have never taken a peek inside a restaurant kitchen, it is something you may want to try, because it is full of interesting items and it is usually quite easy to sneak in, providing that you don't mind being glared at if you are discovered. But when Sonic stepped through the swinging doors, she did not notice a single interesting item in the kitchen. For one thing, the kitchen was swirling with steam, from a dozen pots that were boiling in every corner of the room. The cloudy air made it difficult to see much of anything, but that was not the main reason Sonic was ignoring the culinary equipment. There was a conversation going on between two unfathomable figures in the room, and what was being said was far more interesting than any ingredient or gadget used in preparing traditional Indian dishes.

"I have news from J. S.," either Frank or Ernest was whispering to Kahn. Both men were standing with their backs to Sonic and leaning in toward one another so they could talk as quietly as possible. Sonic maneuvered into the middle of a particularly thick cloud of steam so that he wouldn't be seen.

"J. S.?" Hal said. "She's here?"

"She's here to help," the manager corrected. "She's been using her Vision Furthering Device to watch the skies, and I'm afraid she reports that we will all be eating crow."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Hal said. "Crow is a tough bird to cook, because the meat is very muscular from all the carrying that crows do."

Sonic scratched her head with one glove in puzzlement. The expression "eating crow" simply means "enduring humiliation," and the youngest Hedge had learned it from his parents, who liked to tease each other after playing one another at backgammon. "Bertrand," Sonic could remember his mother saying, tossing the dice to the ground in triumph, "I have won again. Prepare to eat crow." Then, with a gleam in her eyes, he would pounce on Sonic's father and tickle him, while the Hedge children piled on top of their parents in a laughing heap. But Kahn seemed to be discussing the eating of crow as an actual culinary dish, rather than a figure of speech, and the youngest Hedge wondered if there were more to this Indian restaurant than he had thought.

"It is a shame," agreed either Frank or Ernest. "If only there was something that could make the dish a little sweeter. I've heard that certain mushrooms are available."

"Sugar would be better than mushrooms," Kahn said unfathomably.

"According to our calculations, the sugar will be laundered sometime after nightfall," replied the manager, equally unfathomably.

"I'm glad," Kahn said. "My job's been difficult enough. Do you know how many leaves of lettuce I've had to send up to the roof?"

Frank or Ernest frowned. "Tell me," he said, in an even more quiet tone of voice. "Are you who I think you are?"

"Are you who _I_ think you are?" replied Kahn, equally quietly.

Sonic crept closer, hoping to hear more of the conversation to learn if either Frank or Ernest was referring to the Medusoid Mycelium, which was a type of mushroom, or if Kahn was referring to the sugar bowl. But to the youngest Hedge's dismay the floor creaked slightly, and the cloud of steam swirled away, and Hal and Ernest, or perhaps Frank, spun around to gasp at him.

"Are you who I think you are?" said the two men in unison.

One of the advantages of being taciturn is that it is rare for your words to get you into trouble. A taciturn writer, for instance, might produce only one short poem every ten years, which is unlikely to annoy anyone, whereas someone who writes twelve or thirteen books in a relatively short time is likely to find themselves hiding under the coffee table of a notorious villain, holding his breath, hoping nobody at the cocktail party will notice the trembling backgammon set, and wondering, as the ink stain spreads across the carpeting, if certain literary exercises have been entirely worthwhile. If Sonic had decided to adopt a chatty demeanor, he would have had to think of a lengthy reply to the question he had just been asked, and he could not imagine what that reply might be. If he knew that the manager in the kitchen was Frank, he would say something along the lines of, "Sonic Hedge please help," which was his way of saying, "Yes, I'm Sonic Hedge, and my siblings and I need your help uncovering the mysterious plot unfolding in the Hotel Denouement, and signaling our findings to the members of V.F.D." If she knew that it was Ernest who was staring at her, she would say something more like, "No Habla Esperanto," which was her way of saying, "I'm sorry; I don't know what you're talking about." The presence of Kahn, of course, made the situation even more complicated, because the children had exited their employment at

Heimlich Hospital's Library of Records by mutual agreement, as Kahn believed that they were responsible for lighting the Library of Records on fire, and the Hedges needed to flee the hospital as quickly as possible, but Sonic had no way of knowing if Kahn continued to hold a grudge-a phrase which here means "was an enemy of the Hedges"-or if he was working at the hotel as a volunteer. But Sonic had adopted a taciturn demeanor, and a taciturn answer was all that was required.

"Concierge," she said, and that was enough. Kahn looked at Frank, or perhaps it was Ernest, and Ernest, or perhaps it was Frank, looked back at Kahn. The two men nodded, and then crossed to a shiny cabinet at the far end of the kitchen. Kahn opened the cabinet and handed a large, strange object to either Frank or Ernest, who looked it over and handed it to Sonic. The object was like a large, metal spider, with curly wires spreading out in all directions, but where the head of the spider might have been was the keyboard of a typewriter.

"Do you know what this is?" asked the villain or volunteer.

"Yes," the youngest Hedge said. Sonic had never seen such a device, but his siblings had described the strange lock they had encountered in a secret passageway hidden deep within the Mortmain Mountains . Had it not been for Tails' knowledge of science and Amy's remarkable memory for Russian literature, they might never have opened the lock, and Sonic would still be Count Eggman's captive.

"Be very careful with it," said either Frank or Ernest. "When you place this device on the knob of an ordinary door, and press the letters V, F, and D, it will become a Vernacularly Fastened Door. I want you to take the elevator to the basement, and vernacularly fasten Room 025."

"That's the laundry room, you know," said Kahn, squinting at Sonic through his glasses. "As with many laundry rooms, there's a vent, which funnels the steam from all the washing machines to the outside, so the room doesn't overheat."

"But if something were to fall from the sky at just the right angle," said Frank or Ernest, "it might fall down the funnel and into the room. And if that something were very valuable, then the room ought to be locked up tight, so that the item would not fall into the wrong hands."

Sonic Hedge had no idea what these two adults were talking about, and wished that he were still standing unnoticed in the steam, so he could observe the rest of their conversation. But he gripped the strange lock in her gloved hands and knew that it was not time to be a flaneur.

"I'm grateful for your assistance, concierge," Frank said, or maybe it was Ernest, or maybe the man answering was neither brother. "Not many people have the courage to help with a scheme like this."

Sonic gave one more taciturn nod, and turned to exit the kitchen. In silence she walked through the swinging doors and across the restaurant, not even pausing to listen to the whispered conversation Vice Principal Router was having with Mr. Bean Remora and Mrs. Mina Bass, and in silence he opened the door to Room 954 and walked down the hallway to the elevator. It

was only when she was traveling down to the basement that Sonic's silence was shattered by an enormous noise.

The clock in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement is the stuff of legend, a phrase which here means "very famous for being very loud." It is located in the very center of the ceiling, at the very top of the dome, and when the clock announces the hour, its bells clang throughout the entire building, making an immense, deep noise that sounds like a certain word being uttered once for each hour. At this particular moment, it was three o'clock, and everyone in the hotel could hear the booming ring of the enormous bells of the clock, uttering the word three times in succession _: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!_

As he walked through the sliding doors of the elevator and down the basement hallway, past the ornamental vases and numbered doors, Sonic Hedge felt as if the clock were scolding him for his efforts at solving the mysteries of the Hotel Denouement. _Wrong!_ he had tried his best to be a flaneur, but hadn't observed enough to discover what two teachers and a vice principal from Prufrock Preparatory School were doing at the hotel. _Wrong!_ he had tried to communicate with one of the hotel's managers, but had been unable to discover whether he was Frank or Ernest, or whether Kahn was a volunteer or an enemy. And-most _Wrong! of all_ -he was performing an errand as a concierge, and was now turning the entrance to the laundry room into a Vernacularly Fastened Door for some unknown, sinister purpose. With each strike of the clock, Sonic felt wronger and wronger, until at last he reached Room 025, where a washerwoman with long, blond hair and rumpled clothing was just shutting the door on his way out. With a hurried nod, the washer woman padded down the hallway. Sonic dearly hoped his two siblings had found more success in their errands, for as he placed the lock on the doorknob, and typed the letters V-F-D into the typewriter keyboard, all the youngest Hedge could think was that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

R

At this point, the history of the Hedge orphans reverts to its sequential format, and if you are interested in finishing the story, you should read the chapters in the order in which they appear, although I dearly hope you are not interested in finishing the story, any more than the story is interested in finishing you.

R

 **Seven**

 _Quite_ a few things happened that day after the clock struck three and each _Wrong_! echoed throughout the immense and perplexing world of the Hotel Denouement. On the ninth story, a woman was suddenly recognized by a chemist, into a walkie-talkie. On the sixth story, one of the was reported by an ambidextrous man who spoke and the two of them had a fit of giggles. In the basement, a strange sight housekeepers removed a disguise, and drilled a hole behind an ornamental vase in order to examine the cables that held one of the elevators in place, while listening to the faint sound of a very annoying song coming from a room just above her. In Room 296, a volunteer suddenly realized that the Hebrew language is read from right to left rather than left to right, which meant that it should be read from left to right rather than right to left in the mirror, and in the coffee shop, located in Room 178, a villain requested sugar in his coffee, was immediately thrown to the floor so a waitress could see if he had a tattoo on his ankle, and then received an apology and a free slice of rhubarb pie for all his trouble. In Room 174, a banker picked up the phone only to find no one on the line, and in Room 594, a family sat unnoticed among tanks of tropical fish, with only a suitcase of dirty laundry for company, unaware that underneath a cushion of a sofa in the lobby was the doily for which they had been searching for more than nine years. Just outside the hotel, a taxi driver gazed down at the funnel spouting steam into the sky, and wondered if a certain man with an unusually shaped back would ever return and claim the suitcases that still lay in the trunk, and on the other side of the hotel, a woman in a diving helmet and a shiny suit shone a flashlight through the water and tried to see to the murky bottom of the sea. At the opposite end of the city, a long, black automobile took a woman away from a man she loved, and in another city, miles and miles from the Hedges, five siblings played at the beach, unaware that they were about to receive some very dreadful news, and live lives much, much worse than the Hedges (that I never had the courage to research), and in yet another city,

neither the one where the Hedges lived nor the one I just mentioned, someone else learned something and there was some sort of fuss, or so I have been led to believe. With each _Wrong!_ of the clock, as the afternoon slipped into evening, countless things happened, not only in the immense and perplexing world of the Hotel Denouement, but also in the immense and perplexing world that lay outside its brick walls, but the Hedge orphans did not think of any of these things. Curiously , their errands as concierges kept them in the lobby for the rest of the afternoon, so they had no more occasion to venture into the small elevators and observe anything further as flaneurs, and spent the hours fetching things back and forth across the lobby, but the siblings did not think of the objects they were fetching, or the guests who were waiting for them, or even the tall, skinny figure of either Frank or Ernest, who would occasionally rush by them on errands of his own. As evening approached, and the bells behind their desk rang less and less frequently, Tails, Amy, and Sonic thought only of the things that had happened to them. They thought only of what each of them had observed, and they wondered what in the world it all might mean.

Finally, just as either Frank or Ernest had predicted, night arrived and the hotel grew very quiet, and the three siblings gathered behind the large, wooden desk to talk, leaning their backs against the wall and stretching out their legs until their feet almost touched the bells. Tails told the story of Eudora Squalor, Sally Spats, and Geraldine Julienne in the rooftop sunbathing salon, and either Frank or Ernest in the lobby. Amy told the story of Sir and Big in Room 674, and either Frank or Ernest in the sauna. And Sonic told the story of Vice Principal Router, Mr. Bean Remora, and Mrs. Mina Bass in Room 371, and either Frank or Ernest, and Kahn in the Indian restaurant in Room 954. Amy took careful note of everything in her commonplace book, giving the book to Tails when it was her turn to speak, and all three Hedges interrupted each other with questions and ideas, but when all the stories had been told, and the children looked at the countless details inked onto the paper, everything that happened to them was as mysterious as it had been that morning.

"It just doesn't make any sense," Tails said. "Why is Eudora Squalor planning a party?

Why did Sally Spats request a harpoon gun?"

"Why are Sir and Big here?" Amy asked. "Why is there birdpaper hanging out of the window of the sauna?"

"Why Router?" Sonic asked. "Why Remora? Why Bass? Why Kahn?"

"Who is J. S.?" Tails asked. "Is he a man lurking in the basement, or is she a woman watching the skies?"

"Where is Count Eggman?" Amy asked. "Why has he invited so many of our former guardians here to the hotel?"

"FrankErnest," Sonic said, and this was perhaps the most mysterious question of all. Tails, Amy, and Sonic had each encountered one of the managers just moments before the clock struck three. Vanilla Snicket had told them that if they observed everyone they saw, they could tell the villains from the volunteers, but the Hedges did not know which sibling had encountered which manager, and they simply could not imagine how two people could be in three places at once. The Hedges pondered their situation in a silence broken only by a strange, repetitive sound that seemed to be coming from outside. For a moment, this sound was yet another mystery, but the siblings soon realized it was the croaking of frogs. The pond

must have had thousands of frogs living in its depths, and now that night had arrived, the frogs had come to the surface and were communicating with one another in the guttural sound of their species.

It was an unfathomable sound, as if even the natural world were a code the Hedges could not decipher.

"Vanilla said that all would not go well," Tails said. "She said our errands may be noble, but that we would not succeed."

"That's true," agreed Amy. "She said all our hopes would go up in smoke, and maybe she was right. We each observed a different story, but none of the stories makes any sense."

"Elephant," Sonic said.

Tails and Amy looked at their brother curiously. "Poem," she said. "Father."

Tails and Amy looked at one another in puzzlement.

"Elephant," Sonic insisted, but this was one of the rare occasions that Tails and Amy did not understand what their brother was saying. The brow furrowed on Sonic's little forehead as he struggled to remember something that might help make himself clear to her siblings. Finally, he looked up at Tails and Amy. "John Godfrey Saxe," she said, and all three Hedges smiled.

The name John Godfrey Saxe is not likely to mean anything to you, unless you are a fan of American humorist poets of the nineteenth century. There are not many such people in the world, but the Hedges' father was one of them, and had several poems committed to memory. From time to time he would get into a whimsical mood-the word "whimsical," as you probably know, means "odd and impulsive"-and would grab the nearest Hedge child, bounce him or her up and down on his lap, and recite a poem by John Godfrey Saxe about an elephant. In the poem, six blind men encountered an elephant for the first time and were unable to agree on what the animal was like. The first man felt the tall, smooth side of the elephant, and concluded that an elephant was like a wall. The second man felt the tusk of the elephant, and decided that an elephant resembled a spear. The third man felt the trunk of the elephant, and the fourth felt one of the elephant's legs, and so on and so on, with all of the blind men bickering over what an elephant is like. As with many children, Tails and Amy had grown old enough to find their father's whimsical moods a little embarrassing, so Sonic had become the primary audience for Mr. Hedge's poetry recital, and remembered the poem best.

"That poem could have been written about us," Tails said. "We've each observed one tiny part of the puzzle, but none of us has seen the entire thing."

"Nobody could see the entire thing," Amy said. "There's a mystery behind every door at the Hotel Denouement, and nobody can be everywhere at once, observing all the volunteers and all the villains."

"We've still got to try," Tails said. "Vanilla said that the sugar bowl was on its way to this hotel. We have to stop it from falling into the hands of the impostor."

"But the sugar bowl could be hidden anywhere," Amy said, "and the impostor could be anyone. Everyone we observed was talking about J. S., but we still don't know who he or she is."

"'Each was partly in the right,'" Sonic recited, from the penultimate verse of the elephant poem.

Her siblings smiled, and chimed in to finish the line. "'And all were in the wrong,'" they said together, but the last word was drowned out by another sound, or perhaps it would be more proper to say that the last "wrong" was drowned out by another. Wrong! called the clock of the Hotel Denouement. _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong_!

"It's late," Amy said, as the twelfth _Wrong!_ faded . "I hadn't realized we'd been talking for so long." He and his sisters stood up and stretched, and saw that the lobby had grown empty and silent. The lid of the grand piano was closed. The cascading fountain had been turned off. Even the reception desk was empty, as if the Hotel Denouement was not expecting any more guests until the morning. The light from the frog-shaped lamp, and of course the Hedges themselves, were the only signs of life underneath the enormous domed ceiling.

"I guess the guests are asleep," Tails said, "or they're staying up all night reading, like Frank said."

"Or Ernest," Sonic reminded him.

"Maybe we should try to sleep as well," Amy said. "We have one more day to solve these mysteries, and we should be well-rested when that day arrives."

"I suppose there won't be much to observe after dark," Tails said. "Tired," Sonic yawned.

The siblings nodded, but all three orphans just stood there. It did not seem right to sleep when so many enemies were lurking around the hotel, hatching sinister plots. But such events go on every night, not just in the Hotel Denouement but all over the world, and even the noblest of volunteers needs to get a little shut-eye, a phrase which here means "lie down behind a large, wooden desk and hope that nobody rings for the concierge until morning." The children would have preferred more comfortable sleeping circumstances, of course, but it had been a very long time since such circumstances were available, and so without any further discussion they bid one another good night, and Amy reached up and turned off the frog-shaped lamp. For a moment the three children lay there in the darkness, listening to the croaking coming from the pond outside.

"It's dark," Sonic said. The youngest Hedge was not particularly afraid of the dark, but just felt like mentioning it, in case her siblings were nervous.

"It _is_ dark," Tails agreed, with a yawn. "With my sunglasses on, it's as dark as-what did Vanilla Snicket say? as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night."

"That's it," Amy said suddenly. Her brothers heard her stand up in the dark, and then she turned the frog lamp back on, making them both blink behind their sunglasses.

"What's it?" Tails said. "I thought we were going to sleep."

"How can we sleep," Amy asked, "when the sugar bowl is being delivered to the hotel this very night?"

"What?" Sonic asked. "How?"

Amy pulled her commonplace book out of his pocket and flipped to the notes she had taken on what the Hedges had observed. "By crow," she said.

"Crow?" Tails said.

"It wouldn't be the first time crows have carried something important," Amy said, reminding her brothers of the crows in the Village of Fowl Devotees, who had brought the Hedges messages from the Quagmires. "That's what Eudora Squalor has been watching for with her Vision Furthering Device."

"J. S. too," Sonic said, remembering what either Frank or Ernest had said about watching the skies.

"And that's why Sally Spats had me fetch a harpoon gun," Tails said thoughtfully. "To shoot down the crows, so V.F.D. can never get the sugar bowl."

"And that's why either Frank or Ernest had me hang birdpaper outside the window of the sauna," Amy said. "If the crows are hit with the harpoon gun, they'll fall onto the birdpaper, and he'll know that the delivery had been unsuccessful."

"But was it Frank who had you lay out the birdpaper," Tails asked, "or Ernest? If it was Frank, then the birdpaper will serve as a signal to volunteers that they have been defeated. And if it was Ernest, then the birdpaper will serve as a signal to villains that they have triumphed."

"And what about the sugar bowl?" Amy asked. "The crows will drop the sugar bowl if the harpoon hits them." She frowned at a page of her commonplace book. "If the crows drop a heavy object like that," she said, "it will fall straight down into the pond."

"Maybe no," Sonic said.

"Where else could it land?" Tails said.

"Spynsickle," Sonic said, which was her way of saying "laundry room." "How would it get into the laundry room?" Amy asked.

"The funnel," Sonic said. "Frank said. Or Ernest."

"So they had you place a lock on the laundry room door," Tails said, "so that nobody could get to the sugar bowl."

"But did Frank have Sonic activate the lock," Amy asked, "or Ernest? If it was Frank, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any villains who want to get their hands on it. But if it was Ernest, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any volunteers who ought to get their hands on it."

"J. S.," Sonic said.

"J. S. is the key to the entire mystery," Tails agreed. "Eudora Squalor thinks J. S. is spoiling the party. Sir thinks J. S. is hosting the party. Kahn thinks J. S. might be here to help. Vanilla thinks J. S. might be an enemy. And we still don't even know if J. S. is a man or a woman!"

"Like blind men," Sonic said, "with elephant."

"We have to find J. S.," Amy agreed, "but how? Trying to locate one guest in an enormous hotel is like finding one book in a library."

"A library without a catalog," Tails said quietly, and the three Hedges exchanged sad glances by the light of the frog-shaped lamp. The children had uncovered countless secrets in libraries under the most desperate of circumstances. They had decoded a message in a library while a hurricane raged outside, and had found important information while a sinister person chased them around a library in wicked shoes. They had discovered crucial facts in a library that held only three books, and obtained a vital map in a library that was only a pile of papers hidden underneath a table. The Hedges had even found the answers they were looking for in a library that had burned down, leaving only a few scraps of paper and a motto etched on an iron archway. Tails, Amy, and Sonic stood for a moment at the concierge desk and thought of all the libraries they had seen, and wondered if any of the secrets they had uncovered would help them find what they were looking for in the perplexing library of the Hotel Denouement.

"The world is quiet here," Sonic said, reciting the motto his siblings had found, and as his words echoed in the lobby, they heard a noise above them, a quiet shuffling from the enormous dome, scarcely audible over the sound of the croaking frogs. The shuffling grew louder, but the Hedges could not see anything in the blackness over their heads, which was as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night. Finally, Tails lifted the frog-shaped lamp as far as its cord would allow, and all three children removed their sunglasses. Faintly, they could see a shadowy shape lowering itself from the machinery of the clock using what looked like a thick rope. It was an eerie sight, like a spider lowering itself to the center of a web, but the Hedges could not help but admire the skill with which it was done. With only a slight shuffle, the shape drew closer and closer, until at last the children could see it was a fox, tall and skinny, with his legs and arms sticking out at odd angles, as if he were made of drinking straws instead of flesh and bone. The man was climbing down a rope he was unraveling at the same time, which is an activity I do not recommend unless you've had the proper training, and unfortunately the best trainer has been forced to go into hiding ever since a certain mountain headquarters was destroyed by arson, and he now earns his living

doing spider imitations in a traveling show. Finally, the man was quite close to the ground, and with an elegant flourish he let go of the rope and landed silently on the floor. Then he strode toward the Hedges, pausing only to brush a speck of dust off the word MANAGER which was printed in fancy script over one of the pockets of his coat. "Good evening, Hedges," the man said. "Forgive me for not revealing myself earlier, but I had to be sure that you were who I thought you were. It must have been very confusing to wander around this hotel without a catalog to help you."

"So there is a catalog?" Amy asked.

"Of course there's a catalog," the man said. "You don't think I'd organize this entire building according to the Dewey Decimal System and then neglect to add a catalog, do you?"

"But where is the catalog?" Tails asked.

The man smiled. "Come outside," he said, "and I'll show you." "Trap," Sonic murmured to her siblings, who nodded in agreement.

"We're not following you," Tails said, "until we know that you're someone we can trust."

The man smiled. "I don't blame you for being suspicious," he said. "When I used to meet your father, Hedges, we would recite the work of an American humorist poet of the nineteenth century, so we could recognize one another in our disguises." He stopped in the middle of the lobby, and with a gesture from one of his odd, skinny arms, he began to recite a poem:

 _"So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!"_

The words of the American humorist poets of the nineteenth century are often confusing, as they are liable to use such terms as "oft," which is a nineteenth-century abbreviation for "often"; "disputants," which refers to people who are arguing; "ween," which means "think"; and "rail on," which means to bicker for hours on end, the way you might do with a family member who is particularly bossy. Such poets might use the word "prate," which means "chatter," and they might spend an entire stanza discussing "theologic wars," a term which refers to arguing over what different people believe, the way you might also do with a family member who is particularly bossy. Even the Hedges, who'd had the works of American humorist poets of the nineteenth century recited to them many times over their childhood, had trouble understanding everything in the stanza, which simply made the point that all of the blind men in the poem were arguing pointlessly. But Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not need to know exactly what the stanza meant. They only needed to know who wrote it.

"Very good," the man said, and he walked across the shiny, silent floor of the lobby, pulling the rope down from the ceiling and tucking it into his belt.

"And who are you?" Tails called.

"Can't you guess?" the man asked, pausing at the large, curved entrance. The Hedges hurried to catch up with him as he turned to exit the hotel.

"Frank?" Amy said.

"No," the man said, and began to walk down the stairs. The Hedges took a step outside, where the croaking of the frogs in the pond was considerably louder, although the children could not see the pond through the cloud of steam coming from the funnel. Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked at one another cautiously, and then began to follow.

"Ernest?" Sonic asked.

The man smiled, and kept walking down the stairs, disappearing into the steam. "No," he said, and the Hedge orphans stepped out of the hotel and disappeared along with him.

R

 **Eight**

 _The_ word "denouement" is not only the name of a hotel or the family who manages it, particularly nowadays, when the hotel and all its secrets have almost been forgotten, and the surviving members of the family have changed their names and are working in smaller, less glamorous inns. "Denouement" comes from the French, who use the word to describe the act of untying a knot, and it refers to the unraveling of a confusing or mysterious story, such as the lives of the Hedge orphans, or anyone else you know whose life is filled with unanswered questions. The denouement is the moment when all of the knots of a story are untied, and all the threads are unraveled, and everything is laid out clearly for the world to see. But the denouement should not be confused with the end of a story. The denouement of "Snow White," for instance, occurs at the moment when Ms. White wakes up from her enchanted sleep, and decides to leave the dwarves behind and marry the handsome prince, and the mysterious old woman who gave her an apple has been exposed as the treacherous queen, but the end of "Snow White" occurs many years later, when a horseback riding accident plunges Ms. White into a fever from which she never recovers. The denouement of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs at the moment when the bears return home to find Goldilocks napping on their private property, and either chase her away from the premises, or eat her, depending on which version you have in your library, but the end of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs when a troop of young scouts neglect to extinguish their campfire and even the efforts of a volunteer fire department cannot save most of the wildlife from certain death. There are some stories in which the denouement and the end occur simultaneously, such as _La Forza del Destino_ , in which the characters recognize and destroy one another over the course of a single song, but usually the denouement of a story is not the last event in the heroes' lives, or the last trouble that befalls them. It is often the second-to-last event, or the penultimate peril. As the Hedge orphans followed the mysterious man out of the hotel and through the cloud of steam to the edge of the reflective pond, the denouement of their story was fast approaching, but the end of their story still waited for them, like a secret still covered in fog, or a distant island in the midst of a troubled seasea, whose waves raged against the shores of a city and the walls of a perplexing hotel.

"You must have thousands of questions, Hedges," said the fox. "And just think- right here is where they can be answered."

"Who are you?" Tails asked.

"I'm Dewey Denouement," Dewey Denouement replied. "The third triplet. Haven't you heard of me?"

"No," Amy said. "We thought there were only Frank and Ernest."

"Frank and Ernest get all the attention," Dewey said. "They get to walk around the hotel managing everything, while I just hide in the shadows and wind the clock." He gave the Hedges an enormous sigh, and scowled into the depths of the pond. "That's what I don't like about V.F.D.," he said. "All the smoke and mirrors."

"Smoke?" Sonic asked.

"'Smoke and mirrors,'" Amy explained, "means 'trickery used to cover up the truth.' But what does that have to do with V.F.D.?"

"Before the schism," Dewey said, "V.F.D. was like a public library. Anyone could join us and have access to all of the information we'd acquired. Volunteers all over the globe were reading each other's research, learning of each other's observations, and borrowing each other's books. For a while it seemed as if we might keep the whole world safe, secure, and smart."

"It must have been a wonderful time," Amy said.

"I scarcely remember it," Dewey said. "I was four years old when the schism began. I was scarcely tall enough to reach my favorite shelf in the family library-the books labeled 020. But one night, just as our parents were hanging balloons for our fifth birthday party, my brothers and I were taken."

"Taken where?" Tails asked. "Taken by whom?" Sonic asked.

"I admire your curiosity," Dewey said. "The woman who took me said that one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways. And she took me to a place high in the mountains, where she said such things would be encouraged."

Amy opened his commonplace book and began to take furious notes. "The headquarters," Amy said, "in the Valley of Four Drafts."

"Your parents must have missed you," Tails said.

"They perished that very night," Dewey said, "in a terrible fire. I don't have to tell you how badly I felt when I learned the news."

The Hedges sighed, and looked out at the pond. Here and there on its calm surface they could see the reflections of a few lights in the windows, but most of the hotel was dark, so most of the pond was dark, too. The triplet, of course, did not have to tell the Hedges how it felt to lose one's parents so suddenly, or at such a young age. "It was not always this way, Hedges," Dewey said. "Once there were safe places scattered across the globe, and so orphans like yourselves did not have to wander from place to place, trying to find noble people who could be of assistance. With each generation, the schism gets worse. If justice does not prevail, soon there will be no safe places left, and nobody left to remember how the world ought to be."

"I don't understand," Tails said. "Why weren't we taken, like you?"

"You were," Dewey said. "You were taken into the custody of Count Eggman. And he tried to keep you in his custody, no matter how many noble people intervened. From your Uncle Knuckles to Blaze, or as you know her Madam Lulu."

"But why didn't anyone tell us what was going on?" Amy asked. "Why did we have to figure things out all by ourselves?"

"I'm afraid that's the wicked way of the world," Dewey said, with a shake of his head. "Everything's covered in smoke and mirrors, Hedges. Since the schism, all the research, all the observations, even all of the books have been scattered all over the globe. It's like the elephant in the poem your father loved. Everyone has their hands on a tiny piece of the truth, but nobody can see the whole thing. Very soon, however, all that will change."

"Thursday," Sonic said.

"Exactly," Dewey said, smiling down at the youngest Hedge. "At long last, all of the noble people will be gathered together, along with all the research they've done, all the observations they've made, all the evidence they've collected, and all the books they've read. Just as a library catalog can tell you where a certain book is located, this catalog can tell you the location and behavior of every volunteer and every villain." He gestured to the hotel. "For years," he said, "while noble people wandered the world observing treachery, my comrade and I have been right here gathering all the information together. We've copied every note from every commonplace book from every volunteer and compiled it all into a catalog. Occasionally, when volunteers have been lost or safe places destroyed, we've had to go ourselves to collect the information that has been left behind. We've retrieved Sticks Anwhistle's files from Lake Lachrymose and carefully copied down their contents. We've pasted together the burnt scraps of Blaze's or as you know her Madam Lulu archival library and taken notes on what we've found. We've searched the childhood home of the man with a beard but no hair, and interviewed the maths teacher of the woman with hair but no beard. We've memorized important articles within the stacks of newspaper in Paltryville, and we've thrown important items out of the windows of our destroyed headquarters, so they might wind up somewhere safe at sea. We pulled out books from Jet's library in the village of fowl devotees. We've taken every crime, every theft, every wicked deed, and every incident of rudeness since the schism began, and cataloged them into an entire library of misfortune. Eventually, every crucial secret ends up in my catalog. It's been my life's work. It has not been an easy life, but it has been an informative one."

"You're more than a volunteer," Tails said. "You're a librarian."

"I'm more of a sub-sub-librarian," Dewey said modestly. "That's what your parents used to call me, because my library work has been largely undercover and underground. Every villain in the world would want to destroy all this evidence, so it's been necessary to hide my life's work away."

"But where could you hide something that enormous?" Amy said. "It would be like hiding an elephant. A catalog that immense would have to be as big as the hotel itself."

"It is," Dewey said, with a sly expression on his face. "In fact, it's exactly as big as the hotel."

Tails and Amy turned their gaze from Dewey to look at each other in confusion, but Sonic was gazing neither at the sub-sub-librarian nor at his siblings, but down at the dark surface of the pond. " _!ahA_ " he said, pointing a small, gloved finger at the calm, still water.

"Exactly," Dewey said. "The truth has been right under everyone's noses, if anyone cared to look past the surface. Volunteers and villains alike know that the last safe place is the Hotel Denouement, but no one has ever questioned why the sign is written backward. They're staying in the _TNEMEUONED LETOH_ , while the real last safe place-the catalog-is hidden safely at the bottom of the pond, in underwater rooms organized in a mirror image of the hotel itself. Our enemies could burn the entire building to the ground, but the most important secrets would be safe."

"But if the location of the catalog is such an important secret," Tails said, "why are you telling us?"

"Because you should know," Dewey said. "You've wandered the world, observing more villainy and gathering more evidence than most people do in a lifetime. I'm sure the observations and evidence you've gathered in your commonplace book will be valuable contributions to the catalog. Who better than you to keep the world's most important secrets?" He looked out at the pond, and then at each orphan in turn. "After Thursday," he continued, "you won't have to be at sea anymore, Hedges." The children knew that by the expression "at sea" he meant "lost and confused," and hearing those words brought tears to their eyes. "I hope you decide to make this your permanent home. I need someone with an inventive imagination who can improve on the aquatic design of the catalog. I need someone with the sort of research skills that can expand the catalog until it is the finest in the world. And, of course, we'll need to eat, and I've heard wonderful things about Sonic's cooking."

"Efcharisto," Sonic said modestly.

"Kahn's meals are atrocious, I'm afraid," Dewey said with a rueful smile. "I don't know why he insisted on opening his restaurant in Room 954, when so many other suitable rooms were available. Bad food of any style is unpleasant, but bad Indian food is possibly the worst. His curry is either, far far too spicy or flavorless"

"Hal is a volunteer?" Amy asked, remembering what Sonic had observed during her errands as a concierge.

"In a manner of speaking," Dewey said, using an expression which here means "sort of." "After the fire that destroyed Heimlich Hospital , my comrade arrived on the scene to catalog any information that might have survived. She found Hal in a very distraught condition. His Library of Records was in shambles, and he had nowhere to live. She offered him a position at the Hotel Denouement, where he might aid us in our research and learn to cook. Unfortunately he's only been good at one of those things."

"And what about Big?" Tails asked, remembering what Amy had observed during his errands.

"Big has been searching for you since you left the lumbermill," Dewey said. "He cares for you, Hedges, despite the selfish and dreadful behavior of his partner. You've seen your share of wicked people, Hedges, but you've seen your share of people as noble as you are."

"I'm not sure we are noble," Amy said quietly, flipping the pages of his commonplace book. "We caused those accidents at the lumbermill. We're responsible for the destruction of the hospital. We helped start the fire that destroyed Blaze's archival library. We-"

"Enough," Dewey interrupted gently, putting a hand on Amy's shoulder. "You're noble enough, Hedges. That's all we can ask for in this world."

The middle Hedge hung his head, so she was leaning against the sub-sub-librarian, and her brothers huddled against him, and all four volunteers stood for a moment silently in the dark. Tears fell from the eyes of the orphans- all four of them-and, as with many tears shed at night, they could not have said exactly why they were crying, although I know why I am crying as I type this, and it is not because of the onions that someone is slicing in the next room, or because of the wretched curry he is planning on making with them. I am crying because Dewey Denouement was wrong. He was not wrong when he said the Hedges were noble enough, although I suppose many people might argue about such a thing, if they were sitting around a room together without a deck of cards or something good to read. Dewey was wrong when he said that being noble enough is all we can ask for in this world, because we can ask for much more than that. We can ask for a second helping of pound cake, even though someone has made it quite clear that we will not get any. We can ask for a new watercolor set, even though it will be pointed out that we never used the old one, and that all of the paints dried into a crumbly mess. We can ask for Japanese fighting fish, to keep us company in our bedroom, and we can ask for a special camera that will allow us to take photographs even in the dark, for obvious reasons, and we can ask for an extra sugar cube in our coffees in the morning and an extra pillow in our beds at night. We can ask for justice, and we can ask for a handkerchief, and we can ask for cupcakes, and we can ask for all the soldiers in the world to lay down their weapons and join us in a rousing chorus of "Cry Me a River," if that happens to be our favorite song. But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, "You are noble enough," and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt. Most of us, of course, have parents and friends who tell us such things, after we have lost a badminton tournament or failed to capture a notorious counterfeiter who we discovered aboard a certain motorboat. But the Hedge orphans, of course, had no living parents, and their closest friends were high in the sky, in a self- sustaining hot air mobile home, battling eagles and a terrible henchman who had hooks instead of hands, so the acquaintance of Dewey Denouement, and the comforting words he had uttered, were a blessing. The Hedges stood with the sub-sub-librarian, grateful for this blessing, and at the sound of an approaching automobile, they looked to see two more blessings arriving via taxi, and were grateful all over again.

"Hedges!" called a familiar voice. "Hedges!" called another one.

The siblings peered through the dark at the two figures emerging from the taxi, scarcely able to believe their eyes. These people were wearing strange eyeglasses made of two large cones that were attached to their heads with a mass of tangled rope, which was coiled up on top of their heads. Such glasses might have concealed the identity of the people who were wearing them, but the Hedges had no trouble recognizing the people who were hurrying

toward them, even though they had not seen either person for a very long time, and had thought they would never see them again.

"Justice Tikal Strauss!" Tails cried.

"Jerome Vector Squalor!" Amy cried.

"J. S.!" Sonic cried.

"I'm so happy to find you," said the judge, taking off her Vision Furthering Device so she could dab at her eyes and embrace the children one by one. "I was afraid I'd never see you again. I'll never forgive myself for letting that idiotic banker take you away from me."

"And I'll never forgive myself," said Jerome, who had the misfortune of being married to Eudora Squalor, "for walking away from you children. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good guardian."

"And I'm afraid I wasn't a guardian at all," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "As soon as you were taken away in that automobile, I knew I had done the wrong thing, and when I heard the dreadful news about Dr. Knuckles I began searching for you. Eventually I found other people who were also trying to battle the wicked villains of this world, but I always hoped I would find you myself, if only to say how sorry I was."

"I'm sorry, too," Jerome said. "As soon as I heard about all the troubles that befell you in the Village of Fowl Devotees, I began my own Hedge search. Volunteers were leaving me messages everywhere-at least, I thought the messages were addressed _to_ me."

"And I thought they were addressed to _me_ ," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "There are certainly plenty of people with the initials J. S."

"I began to feel like an impostor," Jerome said.

"You're not impostors," Dewey said. "You're volunteers." He turned to the Hedges. "Both these people have helped us immeasurably," he said, using a word which here means "a whole lot." "Justice Tikal Strauss has reported the details of your case to the other judges in the High Court. And Jerome Vector Squalor has done some critical research on injustice."

"I was inspired by my wife," Jerome confessed, removing his Vision Furthering Device. "Wherever I looked for you, Hedges, I found selfish plots to steal your fortune. I read books on injustice in all the libraries you left behind and eventually wrote a book myself. _Odious Lusting After Finance_ chronicles the history of greedy villains, treacherous girlfriends, bungling bankers, and all the other people responsible for injustice."

"No matter what we do, however," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "we can't erase the wrongs we did you, Hedges."

"She's right," Jerome Vector Squalor said. "We should have been as noble as you are."

"You're noble enough," Tails said, and his siblings nodded in agreement, as the judge and the injustice expert embraced them again. When someone has disappointed you, as

Justice Tikal Strauss and Jerome Vector Squalor disappointed the Hedges, it is often difficult to decide whether to continue their acquaintance, even if the disappointers have done noble things in the meantime. There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people who have disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these two philosophies, the second one is of course much more fun, but it can also grow exhausting to stomp off in a huff every time someone has disappointed you, as everyone disappoints everyone eventually, and one can't stomp off in a huff every minute of the day. When the Hedges thought about the harm that each J. S. had done to them, it was as if they had gotten a bruise quite some time ago, one that had mostly faded but that still hurt when they touched it, and when they touched this bruise it made them want to stomp off in a huff. But on that evening-or, more properly, very early Wednesday morning-the siblings did not want to stomp off into the hotel, where so many wicked people were gathered, or into the pond, which was likely to be very cold and clammy at this time of night. They wanted to forgive these two adults, and to embrace them, despite their disappointment.

"I don't mean to break up all this embracing," Dewey said, "but we have work to do, volunteers. As one of the first volunteers said a very long time ago, 'Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.'"

"Speaking of frogs," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "I'm afraid to report that we couldn't see a thing from the other side of the pond. These Vision Furthering Devices work well in the daytime, but looking through special sunglasses after sunset makes everything look as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night-which is precisely what we're looking for."

"Justice Tikal Strauss is correct," Jerome said sadly. "We couldn't verify the arrival of the crows, or whether their journey was interrupted."

"We couldn't see if even a single crow was trapped," the judge said, "or if the sugar bowl fell into the funnel."

"Funnel?" Dewey repeated.

"Yes," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "You told us that if our enemies shot down the crows, they would have fallen onto the birdpaper."

"And if the crows fell onto the birdpaper," Jerome continued, "then the sugar bowl would drop into the laundry room, right?"

Dewey looked slyly at the steaming funnel, and then at the surface of the pond. "So it would appear," he said. "Our enemies capturing the sugar bowl would be as troubling as their capture of the Medusoid Mycelium."

"So you already know about the plan to shoot down the crows, and capture the sugar bowl?" Tails said incredulously.

"Yes," Dewey said. "Justice Tikal Strauss learned that the harpoon gun had been taken up to the rooftop sunbathing salon. Jerome noticed that birdpaper was dangling out of the window of the sauna in Room 613. And I gave Sonic the lock myself, so she could lock up the laundry in Room 025."

"You know about all the villainous people who are lurking in the hotel?" Amy said, equally incredulously.

"Yes," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "We observed rings on all the wooden furniture, from people refusing to use coasters. Obviously there are many villains staying in the hotel."

"Mycelium?" Sonic asked, with perhaps just a touch more incredulousness than her siblings.

"Yes," Jerome said. "We've learned that Eggman has managed to acquire a few spores locked tight in a diving helmet."

The Hedges looked at the commonplace book in Amy's hands, and then back at the sub-sub-librarian. "I guess our observations and evidence aren't such valuable contributions after all," Tails said. "All the mysteries we encountered in the hotel had already been solved."

"It doesn't matter, Hedges," Jerome said. "Eggman won't dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium unless he gets his hands on the sugar bowl, and he'll never find it."

"I'm the only one who knows which words will unlock the Vernacularly Fastened Door," Dewey said, ushering the children back toward the entrance of the hotel, "and there's not a villainous person on Earth who has done enough reading to guess them before Thursday. By then, all of the volunteers will present the research they've done on Count Eggman and his associates to the prosecution, and all their treachery will finally end."

"Jerome Vector Squalor will be an important witness," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "His comprehensive history of injustice will help the High Court reach a verdict."

"Prosecution?" Tails asked. "Witness?" Amy asked. "Verdict?" Sonic said.

The three adults smiled at one another, and then at the Hedges. "That's what we've been trying to tell you," Dewey said gently. "V.F.D. has researched an entire catalog of Eggman's treachery. On Thursday, Justice Tikal Strauss and the other judges of the High Court will hear from each and every one of our volunteers. Count Eggman, Eudora Squalor, and all of the other villainous people gathered here will finally be brought to justice."

"You'll never have to hide from Eggman again," Jerome said, "or worry that anyone will steal your fortune."

"We just have to wait for tomorrow, Hedges," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "and your troubles will finally be over."

"It's like my comrade always says," Dewey said. "Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

 _Wrong!_ The clanging of the clock announced that it was one in the morning, and without another word, Dewey took Tails' hand, and Justice Tikal Strauss took Amy's, and Jerome Vector Squalor leaned down and took Sonic's hand, and the three adults led the three orphans up the stairs toward the hotel's entrance, walking past the taxi, which still sat there, engine purring, with the figure of the driver just a shadow in the window. The three adults smiled at the children, and the children smiled back, but of course the Hedges were not born yesterday, an expression which means "young or innocent enough to believe things certain people say about the world." If the Hedges had been born yesterday, perhaps they would be innocent enough to believe that all of their troubles were truly about to end, and that Count Eggman and all of his treacherous associates would be judged by the High Court, and condemned to the proper punishment for all their ignoble deeds, and that the children would spend the rest of their days working with Dewey Denouement on his enormous underwater catalog, if they only waited for tomorrow. But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Tails was born more than fifteen years before this particular Wednesday, and Amy was born approximately two years after that, and even Sonic, who had just passed out of babyhood, was not born yesterday. Neither were you, unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life. But if you were not born yesterday, and you have read anything about the Hedge children's lives, then you cannot be surprised that this happy moment was almost immediately cut short by the appearance of a most unwelcome person at the moment the children were led through the fog of steam coming from the laundry room funnel and through the entrance of the Hotel Denouement as the one loud Wrong faded into nothing. This person was standing in the center of the lobby, his tall lean body bent into a theatrical pose as if he were waiting for a crowd to applaud, and you will not be surprised to know what was tattooed on his ankle, which the children could see poking out of a hole in his sock even in the dim light of the room. You were not born yesterday, probably, so you will not be surprised to find that this notorious villain had reappeared in the Hedges' lives for the penultimate time, and the Hedges were also not born yesterday, and so they also were not surprised. They were not born yesterday, but when Count Eggman turned to face them, and gazed upon them with his shiny, shiny eyes, the Hedge orphans wished they had not been born at all.

R

 **Nine**

 _'Ha!"_ Count Eggman shrieked, pointing at the Hedge orphans with a bony finger, and the children were thankful for small mercies. A small mercy is simply a tiny thing that has gone right in a world gone wrong, like a sprig of delicious parsley next to a spoiled tuna sandwich, or a lovely dandelion in a garden that is being devoured by vicious goats. A small mercy, like a small flyswatter, is unlikely to be of any real help, but nevertheless the three siblings, even in their horror and disgust at seeing Eggman again, were thankful for the small mercy that the villain had apparently lost interest in his new laugh. The last time the Hedges had seen the villain, he'd been aboard a strange submarine shaped like an octopus, and he'd developed a laugh that was equally strange, full of snorts and squeaks and words that happened to begin with the letter H. But as the villain strode toward the children and the adults who were clutching their hands, it was clear he had since adopted a style of laughter that was succinct, a word which here means "only the word

Ha!"

"Ha!" he cried. "I knew I'd find you orphans again! Ha! And now you're in my clutches!

Ha!"

"We're not in your clutches," Tails said. "We just happen to be standing in the same room."

"That's what you think, orphan," Eggman sneered. "I'm afraid the man who's holding your hand is one of my associates. Hand him over, Ernest. Ha!"

"Ha yourself, Eggman," said Dewey Denouement. His voice was firm and confident, but Tails felt his hand trembling in hers. "I'm not Ernest, and I'm not handing her over!"

"Well, then hand her over, Frank!" Eggman said. "You might consider doing your hair differently so I can tell you apart."

"I'm not Frank, either," Dewey said.

"You can't fool me!" Count Eggman growled. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know! You're one of those idiotic twins! I should know! Thanks to me, you two are the only survivors of the entire family!"

"Triplets run in my family," Dewey said, "not twins. I'm Dewey Denouement."

At this, Count Eggman's one eyebrow raised in astonishment. "Dewey Denouement," he murmured. "So you're a real person! I always thought you were a legendary figure, like unicorns or Giuseppe Verdi."

"Giuseppe Verdi is not a legendary figure," Amy said indignantly. "He's an operatic composer!"

"Silence, bookworm!" Eggman ordered. "Children should not speak while adults are arguing!

Hand over the orphans, adults!"

"Nobody's handing over the Hedges!" Justice Tikal Strauss said, clutching Amy's hand. "You have no legal right to them or their fortune!"

"You can't just grab children as if they were pieces of fruit in a bowl!" Jerome Vector Squalor cried. "It's injustice, and we won't have it!"

"You'd better watch yourselves," Count Eggman said, narrowing his shiny eyes. "I have associates lurking everywhere in this hotel."

"So do we," Dewey said. "Many volunteers have arrived early, and within hours the streets will be flooded with taxis carrying noble people here to this hotel."

"How can you be sure they're noble people?" Count Eggman asked. "A taxi will pick up anyone who signals for one."

"These people are associates of ours," Dewey said fiercely. "They won't fail us."

"Ha!" Count Eggman said. "You can't rely on associates. More comrades have failed me than I can count. Why, Hooky and Fiona double-crossed me just yesterday, and let you brats escape! Then they double-crossed me again and stole my submarine!"

"We can rely on our friends," Tails said quietly, "more than you can rely on yours."

"Is that so?" Count Eggman asked, and leaned toward the children with a ravenous smile. "Have you learned nothing after all your adventures?" he asked. "Every noble person has failed you, Hedges. Why, look at the idiots standing next to you! A judge who let me marry you, a man who gave up on you altogether, and a sub-sub-librarian who spends his life sneaking around taking notes. They're hardly a noble bunch."

"Big is here, from Lucky Smells Lumbermill," Amy said. "He cares about us."' "Sir is here," Eggman retorted. "He doesn't. Ha!"

"Kahn," Sonic said.

"Vice Principal Router and Mr. Bean Remora," Eggman replied, counting each nasty person on his filthy fingers. "And that pesky little reporter from _The Daily Punctilio_ , who's here to write silly articles praising my cocktail party. And ridiculous Mr. Silver Poe, who arrived just hours ago to investigate a bank robbery. Ha!"

"Those people don't count," Amy said. "They're not associates of yours."

"They might as well be," Count Eggman replied. "They've been an enormous help. And every second, more associates of mine get closer and closer."

"So do our friends," Tails said. "They're flying across the sea as we speak, and by tomorrow, their self-sustaining hot air mobile home will land on the roof."

"Only if they've managed to survive my eagles," Count Eggman said with a growl.

"They will," Amy said. "Just like we've survived you."

"And how did you survive me?" Eggman asked. " _The Daily Punctilio_ is full of your crimes. You lied to people. You stole. You abandoned people in danger. You set fires. Time after time you've relied on treachery to survive, just like everyone else. There are no truly noble people in this world."

"Our parents," Sonic said fiercely.

Count Eggman looked surprised that Sonic had spoken, and then gave all three Hedges a smile that made them shudder. "I guess the sub-sub-librarian hasn't told you the story about your parents," he said, "and a box of poison darts. Why don't you ask him, orphans? Why don't you ask this legendary librarian about that fateful evening at the opera?"

The Hedges turned to look at Dewey, who had begun to blush. But before they could ask him anything, they were interrupted by a voice coming from a pair of sliding doors that had quietly opened.

"Don't ask him that," Eudora Squalor said. "I have a much more important question."

With a mocking laugh, the treacherous girlfriend emerged from the elevator, her silver sandals clumping on the floor and her lettuce leaves rustling against her skin. Behind her was Sally Spats, who was still wearing her ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate outfit and carrying the harpoon gun Tails had delivered, and behind her three more people emerged from the elevator. First came the attendant from the rooftop sunbathing salon, still wearing green sunglasses and a long, baggy robe. Following the attendant was the mysterious chemist from outside the sauna, dressed in a long, white coat and a surgical mask, and last out of the elevator was the washerwoman from the laundry room, with long, blond hair and rumpled clothing. The Hedges recognized these people from their observations as flaneurs, but then the attendant removed his robe to reveal his back, which had a small hump on the shoulder, and the chemist removed her surgical mask, not with one of her hands but with one of her feet, and the washerwoman removed a long, blond wig with both hands and tails at the exact same time, and the three siblings recognized the three henchfolk all over again.

"Scourge !" cried Tails.

"Rosy!" cried Amy.

"Miles!" cried Sonic.

"Eudora!" cried Jerome.

"Why isn't anybody calling out my name?" demanded Sally, stomping one of her bright blue boots. She pranced toward Tails, who observed that two of the four long, sharp hooks were missing from the weapon. This sort of observation may be important for a flaneur, but it is dreadful for any reader of this book, who probably does not want to know where the remaining harpoons will end up. "I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate," she crowed to the oldest Hedge, "and you're nothing but a cakesniffer. Call my name or I'll shoot you with this harpoon gun!"

"Sally!" Eudora said, her silver mouth twisting into an expression of shock. "Don't point that gun at Tails!"

"Eudora's right," Count Eggman said. "Don't waste the harpoons. We may need them."

"Yes!" Eudora cried. "There's always important work to do before a cocktail party, particularly if you want it to be the innest in the world! We need to put slipcovers on the couches, and hide our associates beneath them! We need to put vases of flowers on the piano and electric eels in the fountain! We need to hang streamers and volunteers from the ceiling! We need to play music, so people can dance, and block the exits, so they can't leave! And most of all, we have to cook in food and prepare in cocktails! Food and drink are the most important aspect of every social occasion, and our in recipes-"

"The most important aspect of every social occasion isn't food and drink!" Dewey interrupted indignantly. "It's conversation!"

"You're the one who should flee!" Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Your cocktail party will be canceled, due to the host and hostess being brought to justice by the High Court!"

"You're as foolish as you were when we were neighbors," Count Eggman said. "The High Court can't stop us. V.F.D. can't stop us. Hidden somewhere in this hotel is one of the most deadly fungi in the entire world. When Thursday comes, the fungus will come out of hiding and destroy everyone it touches! At last I'll be free to steal the Hedge fortune and perform any other act of treachery that springs to mind!"

"You won't dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium," Dewey said. "Not while I have the sugar bowl."

"Funny you should mention the sugar bowl," Eudora Squalor said, although the Hedges could see she didn't think it was funny at all. "That's just what we want to ask you about."

"The sugar bowl?" Count Eggman asked, his eyes shining bright. "Where is it?"

"The freaks will tell you," Eudora said.

"It's true, boss," said Scourge . "I may be a mere hunchback, but I saw Sally shoot down the crows using the harpoon gun Tails brought her."

Justice Tikal Strauss turned to Tails in astonishment. " _You_ gave Sally the harpoon gun?" she gasped.

"Well, yes," Tails said. "I had to perform concierge errands as part of my disguise."

"The harpoon gun was supposed to be kept away from villains," the judge said, "not given to them. Did you realize that Ernest was tricking you?"

Tails thought back to his unfathomable conversation with Ernest. "I should have known," he said quietly, "but I had to take the harpoon gun up to the roof. What else could I do?"

"I hit two crows!" bragged Sally Spats. "That means Countie has to teach me how to spit like a real ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!"

"Don't worry, darling," Eudora said. "He'll teach you. Won't you, Eggman?"

Count Eggman sighed, as if he had better things to do than teach a little girl how to propel saliva out of her mouth. "Yes, Sally," he said, "I'll teach you how to spit."

Rosy took center stage, a phrase which here means "stepped forward, and twisted her body into an unusual shape." "Even a contortionist like me," she said, her mouth moving beneath her elbow that was between her legs, "could see what happened after Sally shot the crows. They fell right onto the birdpaper that Amy dangled out the window."

" _You_ dangled the birdpaper out the window?" Jerome asked the middle Hedge. "Frank told me to," Amy said, finally realizing which manager had spoken to her in the

sauna. "I had to obey him as part of my disguise."

"Even if he was a volunteer, you can't just do what everyone tells you to do," Jerome said.

"What else could I do?" Amy said.

"When the crows hit the birdpaper," Miles said, gesturing with one hand and then the other, "they dropped the sugar bowl. I didn't see where it went with either my right eye or my left one, which I'm sad to say are equally strong. But I did see Sonic turn the door of the laundry room into a Vernacularly Fastened Door."

"Aha!" Count Eggman cried. "The sugar bowl must have fallen down the funnel!"

"I still don't see why I had to disguise myself as a washerwoman," Miles said timidly. "I could have just been a washer person, and not worn this humiliating wig."

"Or you could have been a noble person," Tails could not help adding, "instead of spying on a brave volunteer."

"What else could I do?" Miles asked, shrugging both shoulders equally high.

"You could be a volunteer yourself," Amy said, looking at all of her former carnival coworkers. "All of you could stand with us now, instead of helping Count Eggman with his schemes."

"I could never be a noble person," Scourge said sadly. "I have a hump on my back."

"And I'm a contortionist," Rosy said. "Someone who can bend their body into unusual shapes could never be a volunteer."

"V.F.D. would never accept an ambidextrous person," Miles said. "It's my destiny to be a treacherous person."

"Galimatias!" Sonic cried.

"Nonsense!" Dewey said, who understood at once what Sonic had said. "I'm ambidextrous myself, and I've managed to do something worthwhile with my life. Being treacherous isn't your destiny! It's your choice!"

"I'm glad you feel that way," Eudora Squalor said. "You have a choice this very moment, Frank. Tell me where the sugar bowl is, or else!"

"That's not a choice," Dewey said, "and I'm not Frank."

Eudora frowned. "Then you have a choice this very moment, Ernest. Tell me where the sugar bowl is, or-"

"Dewey," Sonic said.

Eudora blinked at the youngest Hedge, who noticed that the villainous woman's eyelashes had also been painted silver. "What?" she asked.

"It's true," Eggman said. "He's the real sub-sub. It turns out he's not legendary, like Verdi."

"Is that so?" Eudora Squalor said. "So someone has really been cataloging everything that has happened between us?"

"It's been my life's work," Dewey said. "Eventually, every crucial secret ends up in my catalog."

"Then you know all about the sugar bowl," Eudora said, "and what's inside. You know how important that thing was, and how many lives were lost in the quest to find it. You know how difficult it was to find a container that could hold it safely, securely, and attractively. You know what it means to the Hedges and what it means to the Snickets." She took one sandaled step closer to Dewey, and stretched out one silver fingernail until it was almost poking him in the eye. "And you know," she said in a terrible voice, "that it is _mine._ "

"Not anymore," Dewey said.

"Cream stole it from _me!_ " Eudora cried.

"There are worse things," Dewey said, "than theft."

At this, the girlfriend gave the sub-sub librarian a chuckle that made the Hedges' blood run cold. "There certainly are," she said, and strode toward Sally Spats. With one spiky fingernail she moved the harpoon gun so it was pointing at the triplet. "Tell me how to open that door," she said, "or this little girl will harpoon you."

"I'm not a little girl!" Sally reminded Eudora nastily. "I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate! And I'm not going to shoot any more harpoons until Countie teaches me how to spit."

"You'll do what we say, Sally," Eggman growled. "I already purchased that ridiculous outfit for you, and that boat for you to prowl the swimming pool. Point that weapon at Dewey this instant!"

"Teach me to spit!" Sally said.

"Point the weapon!"

"Teach me to spit!"

"Point the weapon!"

"Teach me to spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

"Weapon!"

"Spit!"

With a raspy roar, Count Eggman roughly yanked the harpoon gun out of Sally's hands, knocking her to the floor. "I'll never teach you how to spit as long as I live!" he shouted. "Ha!"

"Darling!" Eudora gasped. "You can't break your promise to our darling little girl!"

 _"I'm not a darling little girl!"_ Sally screamed. " _I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!"_

"You're a spoiled baby!" Eggman corrected. "I never wanted a brat like you around anyway!

It's about time you were shown some discipline!"

"But discipline is out!" Eudora said.

"I don't care what's out and what's in!" Count Eggman cried. "I'm tired of having a girlfriend obsessed with fashion! All you do is sit around rooftop sunbathing salons while I run around doing all the work!"

"If I hadn't been on the roof," Eudora retorted, "the sugar bowl would have been delivered to V.F.D.! Besides, I was guarding-"

"Never mind what you were doing," Eggman said. "You're fired!"

"You can't fire me!" Eudora growled. "I quit!"

"Well, you can leave by mutual agreement," Eggman grumbled, and then, with another succinct

"Ha!" he lifted the harpoon gun and pointed it at Dewey Denouement. "Tell us the three phrases we need to type into the lock in order to open the Vernacularly Fastened Door and search the laundry room!"

"You won't find anything in the laundry room," Dewey said, "except piles of dirty sheets, a few washing and drying machines, and some extremely flammable chemicals."

"I may have a handsome, youthful glow," Eggman snarled, "but I wasn't born yesterday! Ha!

If there's nothing in the laundry room, why did you put a V.F.D. lock on the door?" "Perhaps it's just a decoy," Dewey said, his hand still trembling in Tails'. "Decoy?" Eggman said.

"'Decoy' is a word with several meanings," the triplet explained. "It can refer to a corner of a pond where ducks can be captured, or to an imitation of a duck or other animal used to attract a real specimen. Or, it can mean something used to distract people, such as a lock on a door that does not contain a certain sugar bowl."

"If the lock is a decoy, sub-sub," Count Eggman sneered, "then you won't mind telling me how to open it."

"Very well," Dewey said, still struggling to sound calm. "The first phrase is a description of a medical condition that all three Hedge children share."

The Hedges shared a smile.

"The second phrase is the weapon that left you an orphan, Eggman," Dewey said.

The Hedges shared a frown.

"And the third," Dewey said, "is the famous unfathomable question in the best-known novel by Richard Wright."

The Hedge brothers shared a look of confusion, and then looked hopefully at Amy, who slowly shook her head.

"I don't have time to medically examine the Hedges," Eggman said, "or shove my face into any best-known novels!"

"Wicked people never have time for reading," Dewey said. "It's one of the reasons for their wickedness."

"I've had enough of your games!" Count Eggman roared. "Ha! If I don't hear the exact phrases used to open the lock by the time Eudora counts to ten, I'll fire the harpoon gun and tear you to shreds! Eudora, count to ten!"

"I'm not counting to ten," Eudora pouted. "I'm not going to do anything for you ever again!"

"I knew it!" Jerome said. "I knew you could be a noble person again, Eudora! You don't have to parade around in an indecent bikini in the middle of the night threatening sub-sub- librarians! You can stand with us, in the name of justice."

"Let's not go overboard," Eudora said. "Just because I'm dumping my boyfriend doesn't mean I'm going to be a goody-goody like you. Justice is out. Injustice is in. That's why it's called 'in'justice."

"You should do what's right in this world," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "not just what's fashionable. I understand your situation, Eudora. When I was your age, I spent years as a horse thief before realizing-"

"I don't want to hear your boring stories," Count Eggman snarled. "The only thing I want to hear are three exact phrases from Dewey's mouth, or his destiny will be death by harpoon, as soon as I say the number ten. _One_!"

"Stop!" Justice Tikal Strauss cried. "In the name of the law!"

" _Two!_ "

" _Stop!_ " Jerome Vector Squalor pleaded. "In the name of injustice!"

" _Three!_ "

" _Stop!_ " Tails ordered, and his siblings nodded in fierce agreement. The Hedges realized, as I'm sure you have realized, that the adults standing with them were going to do nothing that would stop Count Eggman from reaching ten and pulling the trigger of the harpoon gun, and that Justice Tikal Strauss and Jerome Vector Squalor would fail them, as so many noble people had failed them before. But the siblings also knew that this failure would not hurt them-at least, not right away. It would hurt Dewey Denouement, and without another word the three children dropped the hands of the adults and stood in front of the sub-sub-librarian, shielding him from harm.

"You can't harpoon this man," Amy said to Count Eggman, scarcely believing what she was saying. "You'll have to harpoon us first."

"Or," Sonic said, "put down gun."

Dewey Denoument looked too amazed to speak, but Count Eggman merely turned his disdainful gaze from the sub-sub-librarian to the three children. "I wouldn't mind harpooning you either, orphans," he said, his eyes shining bright. "When it comes to slaughtering people, I'm very flexible! Ha! _Four!_ '"

Tails took a step toward the count, who was holding the harpoon gun so it pointed at his chest. "Lay down your weapon, Eggman," the eldest Hedge said. "You don't want to do this wicked thing."

Count Eggman blinked, but did not move the gun. "Of course I do," he said. "If the sub-sub doesn't tell me how to get the sugar bowl, I'll pull the trigger no matter who's standing in front of me! Ha! _Five!"_

Amy took a step forward, joining her brother. "You have a choice," she said. "You can choose not to pull that trigger!"

"And you can choose death by harpoon!" Count Eggman cried. _"Six!"_

"Please," Sonic said, joining his brother. The villain did not move, but standing together, the three Hedges walked closer and closer to the harpoon gun, shielding Dewey all the while.

" _Seven!"_

 _"Please,"_ the youngest Hedge said again. The Hedges walked slowly but steadily toward the harpoon gun, their echoing footsteps the only sound in the silent lobby except for Eggman's shrieking of higher and higher numbers.

"Eight!"

They walked closer.

 _"Nine_ "

The children took one last step, and silently put their hands on the harpoon gun, which felt ice cold, even through their white gloves. They tried to pull the weapon out of Eggman's hands, but their first guardian did not let go, and for a long moment the youngsters and the adult were gathered around the terrible weapon in silence. Tails stared at the hooked tip of one harpoon that was pressed against her chest. Amy stared straight ahead at the bright red trigger that could press at any moment, and Sonic stared into Eggman's shiny, shiny eyes for even the smallest sign of nobility.

"What else can I do?" the villain asked, so quietly the children could not be sure they had heard him correctly.

"Give us the gun," Tails said. "It's not your destiny to do this treacherous deed." "Give us the gun," Amy said. "It's not your destiny to be a wicked person."

 _"La Forza del Destino_ ," Sonic said, and then nobody said anything more. It was so quiet in the lobby that the Hedges could hear Eggman draw breath as he got ready to shout the word "ten."

But then, in an instant, they heard another sound, specifically a very loud cough, and in an instant everything changed, which is the wicked way of the world. In an instant, you can light a match and start a fire that can destroy the lives of countless people. In an instant, you can remove a cake from the oven and provide dessert for countless others, assuming that the cake is very large, and the others are not very hungry. In an instant, you can change a few words in a poem by Robert Frost and communicate with your associates through a code known as Verse Fluctuation Declaration, and in an instant, you can realize where something is hidden and decide whether you are going to retrieve it or let it stay hidden, where it might never be found and eventually be forgotten by all but a few very well-read and very distraught figures, who are themselves forgotten by all but a few very well-read and very distraught figures, who

in turn are forgotten, and so on, and so on, and so on, and a few more so ons besides. All this can happen in an instant, as if a single instant is an enormous container, capable of holding countless secrets safely, securely, and attractively, such as the countless secrets held in the Hotel Denouement, or in the hidden underwater catalog in its rippling reflection. But in this instant, in the hotel's enormous lobby, the Hedge orphans heard a cough, as loud as it was familiar, and in this instant Count Eggman turned to see who was walking into the lobby, and hurriedly pushed the harpoon gun into the Hedges' hands when he saw a figure wearing pajamas with drawings of money all over them and a bewildered expression on his face. In this instant, the three siblings grasped the weapon, feeling its heavy, dark weight in their hands, and in this instant the gun slipped from their hands and clattered to the green wooden floor, and in this instant they heard the red trigger _click!_ , and in this instant the penultimate harpoon was fired with a _swoosh!_ and sailed through the enormous, domed room and struck someone a fatal blow, a phrase which here means "killed one of the people in the room."

"What's going on?" Mr. Silver Poe demanded, for it was not his destiny to be slain by a harpoon, at least not on this particular evening. "I could hear people arguing all the way from Room

174\. What in the world-" and in that instant he stopped, and gazed in horror at the three siblings. "Hedges!" he gasped, but he was not the only person gasping. Tails gasped, and Amy gasped, and Sonic gasped, and Justice Tikal Strauss and Jerome Vector Squalor gasped, and Scourge , Rosy, and Miles-who were accustomed to violence from their days as carnival employees and as henchmen to a villain-gasped, and Sally Spats gasped, and Eudora Squalor gasped, and even Count Eggman gasped, although it is unusual for a villain to gasp unless he is discovering a crucial secret, or suffering very great pain. But it was Dewey Denouement who gasped loudest of all, louder even than the _Wrong!_ s that thundered through the hotel as the clock struck two. _Wrong! Wrong_! the clock thundered, but all the Hedges heard was Dewey's pained, choking gasp, as he stumbled backward through the lobby, one hand on his chest, and the other clutching the tail end of the harpoon, which stuck out from his body at an odd angle, like a drinking straw, or a reflection of one of Dewey's skinny arms.

"Dewey!" Tails cried. "Dewey!" Amy cried.

" _Denouement_!" Sonic cried, but the sub- sub- librarian did not answer, and stumbled backward out of the hotel in silence. For a moment, the children were too shocked to move as they watched him disappear into the cloud of steam rising from the laundry room funnel, but then they ran after him, hurrying down the stairs as they heard a _splash!_ from the edge of the pond. By the time the Hedges reached him, he was already beginning to sink, his trembling body making ripples in the water. There are those who say that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action, but the Hedges could not bear to think of the tiny action of the trigger of the harpoon gun, or how the world had changed in just one instant. Instead, they frantically rushed to the edge of the pond as the sub-sub-librarian began to sink. Amy grabbed one hand, and Sonic grabbed the other, and Tails reached for his face, as if he were comforting someone who had begun to cry.

"You'll be O.K.," Tails cried. "Let us get you out of the water."

Dewey shook his head, and then gave the children a terrible frown, as if he were trying to speak but unable to find the words.

"You'll survive," Amy said, although he knew, both from reading about dreadful events and from dreadful events in his own life, that this simply was not true.

Dewey shook his head again. By now, only his head was above the surface of the water, and his two trembling hands. The children could not see his body, or the harpoon, which was a small mercy.

"We failed you," Sonic said.

Dewey shook his head one more time, this time very wildly in violent disagreement. He opened his mouth, and reached one hand out of the water, pointing past the Hedges toward the dark, dark sky as he struggled to utter the word he most wanted to say. "Vanilla," he whispered finally, and then, slipping from the grasp of the children, he disappeared into the dark water, and the Hedge orphans wept alone for the mercies denied them, and for the wicked, wicked way of the world.

R

 **Ten**

 _"What_ was that?" a voice called out.

"It sounded like a harpoon gun being fired!" cried another voice.

"A harpoon gun?" asked a third voice. "This is supposed to be a hotel, not a shooting gallery!"

"I heard a splash!" cried someone.

"Me too!" agreed someone else. "It sounded like somebody fell into the pond!"

The Hedge orphans gazed at the settling surface of the pond and saw the reflections of shutters and windows opening on every story of the Hotel Denouement. Lights went on, and the silhouettes of people appeared, leaning out of the windows and pointing down at the weeping children, who were too upset to pay much attention to all the shouting.

"What's all this shouting about?" asked another voice. "I was fast asleep!"

"It's the middle of the night!" complained someone else. "Why is everybody yelling?"

"I'll tell you why there's yelling!" yelled someone. "Someone was shot with a harpoon gun and then fell into the pond!"

"Come back to bed, Max," said someone else.

"I can't sleep if there's murderers on the loose!" cried another guest.

"Amen, brother!" said another person. "If a crime has been committed, then it's our duty to stand around in our pajamas in the name of justice!"

"I can't sleep anyway!" said somebody. "That lousy Indian food has kept me up all night!" "Somebody tell me what's going on!" called a voice. "The readers of _The Daily Punctilio_

will want to know what's happened."

The sound of the voice of Geraldine Julienne, and the mention of her inaccurate publication, forced the children to stop crying, if only for a moment. They knew it would be wise to postpone their grief-a phrase which here means "mourn the death of Dewey Denouement at a later time"-and make sure that the newspaper printed the truth.

"There's been an accident," Tails called, not turning his eyes from the surface of the pond. "A terrible accident."

"One of the hotel managers has died," Amy said.

"Which one?" asked a voice from a high window. "Frank or Ernest?" "Dewey," Sonic said.

"There's no Dewey," said another voice. "That's a legendary figure." "He's not a legendary figure!" Tails said indignantly. "He's a sub-"

Amy put her hand on her brother's, and the eldest Hedge stopped talking. "Dewey's catalog is a secret," she whispered. "We can't have it announced in _The Daily Punctilio_."

"But truth," Sonic murmured.

"Amy is right," Tails said. "Dewey asked us to keep his secret, and we can't fail him." he looked sadly out at the pond, and wiped the tears from his eyes. "It's the least we can do," he said.

"I didn't realize this was a sad occasion," said another hotel guest. "We should observe everything carefully, and intrude only if absolutely necessary."

"I disagree!" said someone in a raspy shout. "We should intrude right now, and observe only if absolutely necessary!"

"We should call the authorities!" said someone else.

"We should call the manager!"

"We should call the concierge!"

"We should call my mother!"

"We should look for clues!"

"We should look for weapons!"

"We should look for my mother!"

"We should look for suspicious people!"

"Suspicious people?" repeated another voice. "But this is supposed to be a nice hotel!" "Nice hotels are crawling with suspicious people," someone else remarked.

"I saw a washerwoman who was wearing a suspicious wig!"

"I saw a concierge carrying a suspicious item!" "I saw a taxi carrying a suspicious passenger!" "I saw a cook preparing suspicious food!"

"I saw an attendant holding a suspicious spatula!" "I saw a man with a suspicious cloud of smoke!" "I saw a baby with a suspicious lock!"

"I saw a manager wearing a suspicious uniform!" "I saw a woman wearing suspicious lettuce!"

"I saw my mother!"

"I can't see anything!" someone yelled. "It's as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night!"

"I see something right now!" cried a voice. "There are three suspicious people standing at the edge of the pond!"

"They're the people who were talking to the reporter!" cried somebody else. "They're refusing to show their faces!"

"They must be murderers!" cried yet another person. "Nobody else would act as suspiciously as that!"

"We'd better hurry downstairs," said one more guest, "before they escape!"

"Wow!" squealed another voice. "Wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ read the headline: 'VICIOUS MURDER AT HOTEL DENOUEMENT!' That's much more exciting than an accident!"

"Mob psychology," Sonic said, remembering a term Amy had taught him.

"Sonic's right," said Amy, wiping her eyes. "This crowd is getting angrier and angrier. In a moment, they'll all believe we're murderers."

"Maybe we are," Tails said quietly.

"Poppycock!" Sonic said firmly, which meant something like, "Nonsense." "Accident!" "It was an accident," Amy said, "but it was our fault."

"Partially," Sonic said.

"It's not for us to decide," Tails said. "We should go inside and talk to Justice Tikal Strauss and the others. They'll know what to do."

"Maybe," Amy said. "Or maybe we should run." "Run?" Sonic asked.

"We can't run," Tails said. "If we run, everyone will think we're murderers."

"Maybe we are," Amy pointed out. "All the noble people in that lobby have failed us. We can't be sure they'll help us now."

Tails heaved a great sigh, his breath still shaky from his tears. "Where would we go?" he whispered.

"Anywhere," Amy said simply. "We could go somewhere where no one has ever heard of Count Eggman, or V.F.D. There must be other noble people in the world, and we could find them."

"There are other noble people," Tails said. "They're on their way here. Dewey told us to wait until tomorrow. I think we should stay."

"Tomorrow might be too late," Amy said. "I think we should run."

"Torn," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "I see the advantages and disadvantages of both plans of action," but before his siblings could answer, the children felt a shadow over them, and looked up to see a tall, skinny figure standing over them. In the darkness the children could not see any of his features, only the glowing tip of a skinny cigarette in his mouth.

"Do you three need a taxi?" he asked, and gestured to the automobile that had brought Justice Tikal Strauss and Jerome Vector Squalor to the entrance of the hotel.

The siblings looked at one another, and then squinted up at the man. The children thought perhaps his voice was familiar, but it might just have been his unfathomable tone, which they'd heard so many times since their arrival at the hotel that it made everything seem familiar and mysterious at the same time.

"We're not sure," Tails said, after a moment.

"You're not sure?" the man asked. "Whenever you see someone in a taxi, they are probably being driven to do some errand. Surely there must be something you need to do, or somewhere you need to go. A great American novelist wrote that people travel faster now, but she wasn't sure if they do better things. Maybe you would do better things if you traveled at this very moment."

"We haven't any money," Amy said.

"You needn't worry about money," the man said, "not if you're who I think you are." He leaned in toward the Hedges. "Are you?" he asked. "Are you who I think you are?"

The children looked at each other again. They had no way of knowing, of course, if this man was a volunteer or an enemy, a noble man or a treacherous person. In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes great American novelists is anything but treacherous, and in general a man who says you needn't worry about money, or a man who smokes cigarettes, is somewhere in between. But the Hedge orphans were not standing in general. They were standing outside the Hotel Denouement, at the edge of a pond where a great secret was hidden, while a crowd of guests grew more and more suspicious about the terrible thing that had just occurred. The children thought of Dewey, and remembered the terrible, terrible sight of him sinking into the pond, and they realized they had no way of knowing if they themselves were good or evil, let alone the mysterious man towering over them.

"We don't know," Sonic said finally.

"Hedges!" came a sharp voice at the top of the stairs, followed by a fit of coughing, and the siblings turned to see Mr. Silver Poe, who was staring at the children and covering his mouth with a white handkerchief. "What has happened?" he asked. "Where is that man you shot with the harpoon?"

The Hedges were too weary and unhappy to argue with Mr. Silver Poe's description of what happened. "He's dead," Tails said, and found that tears were in his eyes once more.

Mr. Silver Poe coughed once more in astonishment, and then stepped down the stairs and stood in front of the children whose welfare had been his responsibility. "Dead!" he said. "How did that happen?"

"It's difficult to say," Amy said.

"Difficult to say?" Mr. Silver Poe frowned. "But I saw you, Hedges. You were holding the weapon or you dropped it or whatever. Surely you can tell me what happened."

"Henribergson," Sonic said, which meant "It's more complicated than that," but Mr. Silver Poe only shook his head as if he'd heard enough.

"You'd better come inside," he said, with a weary sigh. "I must say I'm very disappointed in you children. When I was in charge of your affairs, no matter how many homes I found for you, terrible things occurred. Then, when you decided to handle your own affairs, _The Daily Punctilio_ brought more and more news of your treachery with each passing day, but I found it ridiculas.

I see that once more an unfortunate event has occurred, and another guardian is dead. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Is this fate? Destiny? I can't say."

The Hedges did not answer. Dewey Denouement, of course, had not been their official guardian at the Hotel Denouement, but he had looked after them, even when they did not know it, and he had done his best to protect them from the villainous people lurking around their home. Even though he wasn't a proper guardian, he was a good guardian, and the children were ashamed of themselves for their participation in his unfortunate death. In silence, they waited while Mr. Silver Poe had another fit of coughing, and then the banker put his hands on the Hedges' shoulders, pushing them toward the entrance to the hotel.

"This isn't our destiny," Amy said, but she did not sound very sure, and Mr. Silver Poe merely gave her a sad, stern look, and kept pushing. If someone taller than you has ever reached down to push you by the shoulder, then you know this is not a pleasant way to travel, but the Hedges were too upset and confused to care. Up the stairs they went, the banker plodding behind them in his ugly pajamas, and only when they reached the cloud of steam that still wafted across the entrance did they think to look back at the mysterious man who had offered them a ride. By then the man was already back inside the taxi and was driving slowly away from the Hotel Denouement, and just as the children had no way of knowing if he was a good person or not, they had no way of knowing if they were sad or relieved to see him go, and even after months of research, and many sleepless nights, and many dreary afternoons spent in front of an enormous pond, throwing stones in the hopes that someone would notice the ripples I was making, I have no way of knowing if the Hedges should have been sad or relieved to see him go either. I do know who the man was, and I do know where he went afterward, and I do know the name of the woman who was hiding in the trunk, and the type of musical instrument that was laid carefully in the back seat, and the ingredients of the sandwich tucked into the glove compartment, and even the small item that sat on the passenger seat, still damp from its hiding place, but I cannot tell you if the Hedges would have been happier in this man's company, or if it was better that he drove away from the three siblings, looking back at them through the rearview mirror and clutching a monogrammed napkin in his trembling hand. I do know that if they had gotten into his taxi, their troubles at the Hotel Denouement would not have been their penultimate peril, and they would have had quite a few more woeful events in their lives that would likely take thirteen more books to describe, but I have no way of knowing if it would have been better for the orphans, any more than I know if it would have been better for me had I decided to continue my life's work rather than researching the Hedges' story, or if it would have been better for my sister had she decided to join the children at the Hotel Denouement instead of waterskiing toward Captain Charmy Widdershin s, and, later, waterskiing away from him, or if it would have been better for you to step into that taxicab you saw not so long ago and embark on your own series of events, rather than continuing with the life you have for yourself. There is no way of knowing. When there is no way of knowing, one can only imagine, and I imagine that the Hedge orphans were quite frightened indeed when they walked through the entrance to the hotel and saw the crowd of people waiting for them in the lobby.

"There they are!" roared someone from the back of the room. The children could not see who it was, because the lobby was as crowded as it had been when they first set foot in the perplexing hotel. It had been strange to walk through the enormous, domed room that morning, passing unnoticed in their concierge disguises, but this time every person in the

lobby was looking directly at them. The children were amazed to see countless familiar faces from every chapter of their lives, and saw many, many people they could not be sure if they recognized or not. Everyone was wearing pajamas, nightgowns, or other sleepwear, and was glaring at the Hedges through eyes squinty from being awakened in the middle of the night. It is always interesting to observe what people are wearing in the middle of the night, although there are more pleasant ways to make such observations without being accused of murder. "Those are the murderers!"

"They're no ordinary murderers!" cried Geraldine Julienne, who was wearing a bright yellow nightshirt and had a shower cap over her hair. "They're the Hedge orphans!"

A ripple of astonishment went through the pajamaed crowd, and the children wished they had thought to put their sunglasses back on. "The Hedge orphans?" cried Sir, whose pajamas had the initials L. S. stenciled over the pocket, presumably for "Lucky Smells." "I remember them! They caused accidents in my lumbermill!"

"The accidents weren't their fault!" Big said, whose pajamas matched his partner's. "They were the fault of Count Eggman!"

"Count Eggman is another one of their victims!" cried a woman dressed in a bright pink bathrobe. The Hedges recognized her as Mrs. Morrow, one of the citizens of the Village of Fowl Devotees. "He was murdered right in my hometown!"

"That was Count Redman," said another citizen of the town, a man named Mr. Lesko who apparently slept in the same plaid pants he wore during the day.

"I'm sure the Hedges aren't murderers," said Jerome Vector Squalor. "I was their guardian, and I always found them to be polite and kind."

"They were pretty good students, if I remember correctly," said Mr. Bean Remora, who was wearing a nightcap shaped like a banana.

" _They were pretty good students, if I remember correctly_ ," Vice Principal Router mimicked. "They were nothing of the sort. Tails and Amy flunked all sorts of tests, and Sonic was the worst administrative assistant I've ever seen!"

"I say they're criminals," Mrs. Mina Bass said, adjusting her wig, "and criminals ought to be punished."

"Yes," said Scourge . "Criminals are too freakish to be running around loose,"

"They're not criminals," Kahn said firmly, "and I should know."

"So should I," retorted Eudora Squalor, "and I say they're guilty as sin." Her long, silver fingernails rested on the shoulder of Sally Spats, who was glaring at the siblings as Mr. Silver Poe pushed them past.

"I think they're guiltier than that!" said one of the hotel bellboys.

"I think they're even guiltier than you think they are!" cried another.

"I think they look like nice kids!" said someone the children did not recognize. "I think they look like vicious criminals!" said another person.

"I think they look like noble volunteers!" said another. "I think they look like treacherous villains!"

"I think they look like concierges!"

"One of them looks a bit like my mother!"

 _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong_! The lobby seemed to shake as the clock struck three in the morning. By now, Mr. Silver Poe had escorted the Hedges to a far corner of the lobby, where either Frank or Ernest was waiting next to the door marked 121 with a grim expression on his face as the last _Wrong!_ echoed in the enormous room.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" The children turned to see Justice Tikal Strauss, who was standing on one of the wooden benches so she could be seen and clapping her hands for attention. "Please settle down! The matter of the Hedges' guilt or innocence is not for you to decide."

"That doesn't seem fair," remarked a man in pajamas with a pattern of salmon swimming upstream. "After all, they woke us up in the middle of the night."

"The case is a matter for the High Court," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "The authorities have been notified, and the other judges of the court are on their way. We will be able to begin the trial in a matter of hours."

"I thought the trial was on Thursday," said a woman in a nightgown emblazoned with dancing clowns.

"Showing up early is one of the signs of a noble person," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Once the other noble judges have arrived, we will decide on this matter-and other equally important matters-once and for all."

There was a murmur of discussion in the crowd. "I suppose that's all right," grumbled someone.

"All right?" Geraldine Julienne said. "It's wonderful! I can see the headline now: 'HIGH COURT FINDS HEDGES GUILTY!'"

"No one is guilty until the trial is over," Justice Tikal Strauss said, and for the first time the judge gazed down at the children and gave them a gentle smile. It was a small mercy, that smile, and the frightened Hedges smiled back. Justice Tikal Strauss stepped off the bench and walked through the murmuring crowd, followed by Jerome Vector Squalor.

"Don't worry, children," Jerome said. "It looks like you won't have to wait until tomorrow for justice to be served."

"I hope so," Tails said.

"I thought judges weren't allowed to reach verdicts on people they know," Amy said.

"Normally that's true," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "The law should be impartial and fair. But I think I can be fair where Count Eggman is concerned."

"Besides," Jerome said, "there are two other judges on the High Court. Justice Tikal Strauss's opinion is not the only one that matters."

"I trust my fellow judges," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I've known them for years, and they've always been concerned whenever I've reported on your case. While we wait for them to arrive, however, I've asked the managers of the hotel to put you in Room 121, to keep you away from this angry crowd."

Without a word, Frank or Ernest unlocked the door and revealed the small, bare closet where Tails had found the harpoon gun. "We'll be locked up?" Amy said nervously.

"Just to keep you safe," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "until the trial begins."

"Yes!" cried a voice the children would never forget. The crowd parted to reveal Count Eggman, who walked toward the Hedges with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. "Lock them up!" he said. "We can't have treacherous people running around the hotel! There are noble, decent people here."

"Really?" asked Rosy.

"Ha!" Count Eggman said. "I mean, of course! The High Court will decide who's noble and who's wicked. In the meantime, the orphans should be locked in a closet."

"Hear hear!" Miles said, raising one arm and then the other in an ambidextrous salute. "They're not the only ones," Justice Tikal Strauss said sternly. "You, sir, have also been accused

of a great deal of treachery, and the High Court is very interested in your case as well. You will be locked in Room 165 until the trial begins."

The man who was not Frank but Ernest, or vice versa, stepped sternly out of the crowd and took Eggman's arm.

"Fair enough," said Eggman. "I'm happy to wait for the verdict of the High Court. Ha!"

The three siblings looked at one another, and then around the lobby, where the crowd was looking fiercely back at them. They did not want to be locked in a small room, no matter what the reason, and they could not understand why the idea of the High Court reaching a verdict on Count Eggman made him laugh. However, they knew that arguing with the crowd would be bootless, a word which here means "likely to get the siblings in even more trouble," and so without another word, the three Hedges stepped inside the closet. Jerome and Justice Tikal Strauss gave them a little wave, and Mr. Silver Poe gave them a little cough, and either Frank or Ernest stepped forward to shut the door. At the sight of the manager, the children suddenly thought not of Dewey, but of the family left behind, just as Tails, Amy, and Sonic were all left behind after that first day at Briny Beach , and the dreadful news they received there.

"We're sorry," Sonic said, and the manager looked down at the youngest Hedge and blinked. Perhaps he was Frank, and thought the Hedges had done something wicked, or perhaps he was Ernest, and thought the Hedges had done something noble, but in either case the manager looked surprised that the children were sorry. For a moment, he paused, and gave them a tiny nod, but then he shut the door and the Hedge children were alone. The door of Room 121 was surprisingly thick, and although the light of the lobby shone clearly through the gap at the bottom of the door, the noise of the crowd was nothing but a faint buzzing, like a swarm of bees or the workings of a machine. The orphans sank to the floor, exhausted from their busy day and their terrible, terrible night. They took off their shoes and leaned against one another in the cramped surroundings, trying to find a comfortable position and listening to the buzz of the arguing crowd in the lobby.

"What will happen to us?" Tails asked. "I don't know," Amy said.

"Perhaps we should have run," Tails said, "like you suggested, Amy."

"Perhaps at a trial," the middle Hedge said, "the villains at last will be brought to justice."

"Eggman," Sonic asked, "or us?"

What Sonic asked, of course, was whether Count Eggman was the villain who would be brought to justice, or if it would be the three Hedges, but his siblings had no answer for him. Instead, the eldest Hedge leaned down and kissed the top of his brothers head, and Amy leaned up to kiss Tails', and Sonic moved his head first to the right and then to the left, to kiss both of them. If you had been in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement, you would not have heard anything from behind the thick door of Room 121, as the Hedges ended their conversation with a great, shuddering sigh, and nestled close to one another in the small space. You would have had to be on the other side of the door, leaning against the children yourself, to hear the tiny, quiet sounds as the Hedge orphans cried themselves to sleep, unable to answer Sonic's question.

R

 **Eleven**

 _An_ old expression, used even before the schism, says that people should not see the creation of laws or sausages. This makes sense, as the creation of sausages involves taking various parts of different animals and shaping them until they are presentable at breakfast,

and the creation of laws involves taking various parts of different ideas and shaping them until they are presentable at breakfast, and most people prefer to spend their breakfasts eating food and reading the newspaper without being exposed to creation of any sort whatsoever.

The High Court, like most courts, was not involved in the creation of laws, but it was involved in the interpretation of laws, which is as perplexing and unfathomable as their creation, and like the interpretation of sausages is something that also should not be seen. If you were to put this book down, and travel to the pond that now reflects nothing but a few burnt scraps of wood and the empty skies, and if you were to find the hidden passageway that leads to the underwater catalog that has remained secret and safe for all these years, you could read an account of an interpretation of sausages that went horribly wrong and led to the destruction of a very important bathyscaphe, all because I mistakenly thought the sausages were arranged in the shape of a K when actually the waiter had been trying to make an R, and an account of an interpretation of the law that went horribly wrong, although it would hardly be worth the trip as that account is also contained in the remaining chapters of this book, but if you were at all sensible you would shield your eyes from such interpretations, as they are too dreadful to read. As Tails, Amy, and Sonic caught a few winks-a phrase which here means "slept fitfully in the closet-sized Room 121"-arrangements were made for the trial, during which the three judges of the High Court would interpret the laws and decide on the nobility and treachery of Count Eggman and the Hedges, but the children were surprised to learn, when a sharp knock on the door awakened them, that they would not see this interpretation themselves.

"Here are your blindfolds," said one of the managers, opening the door and handing the children three pieces of black cloth. The Hedges suspected he was Ernest, as he hadn't bothered to say "Hello."

"Blindfolds?" Tails asked.

"Everyone wears blindfolds at a High Court trial," the manager replied, "except the judges, of course. Haven't you heard the expression 'Justice is blind'?"

"Yes," Amy said, "but I always thought it meant that justice should be fair and unprejudiced."

"The verdict of the High Court was to take the expression literally," said the manager, "so everyone except the judges must cover their eyes before the trial can begin."

"Scalia," Sonic said. he meant something like, "It doesn't seem like the literal interpretation makes any sense," but her siblings did not think it was wise to translate.

"I also brought you some tea," he said, revealing a tray containing a teapot and three cups. "I thought it might fortify you for the trial."

By "fortify," the manager meant that a few sips of tea might give the children some much- needed strength for their ordeal, and the children thought it must be Frank who was doing them such a favor. "You're very kind," Tails said.

"I'm sorry there's no sugar," he said.

"That's quite all right," Amy said, and then hurriedly flipped to a page in his commonplace book until he found his notes on the children's conversation with Vanilla Snicket. "'Tea should be bitter as wormwood,'" he read, "'and as sharp as a two-edged sword.'"

The manager gave Amy a small, unfathomable smile. "Drink your tea," he said. "I'll knock in a few minutes to bring you to trial."

Frank, unless it was Ernest, shut the door, and left the Hedges alone. "Why did you say that about the tea?" Tails asked.

"I thought he might be talking to us in code," Amy said. "I thought if we gave the proper reply, something might happen."

"Unfathomable," Sonic said.

"Everything seems unfathomable," Tails said with a sigh, pouring tea for his siblings. "It's getting so that I can't tell a noble person from a wicked one."

"Vanilla said that the only way to tell a villain from a volunteer is to observe everyone, and make such judgements ourselves," Amy said, "but that hasn't helped us at all."

"Today the High Court will do the judging for us," Tails said. "Maybe they'll prove to be helpful."

"Or fail us," Sonic said.

The eldest Hedge smiled, and reached to help his brother put on his shoes. "I wish our parents could see how much you've grown," she said. "Mother always said you'd be going places."

"I doubt a closet in the Hotel Denouement was what she had in mind," Amy said, blowing on her tea to cool it.

"Who knows what they had in mind?" Tails asked. "That's one more mystery we'll probably never solve."

Sonic took a sip of tea, which was indeed as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two- edged sword, although the youngest Hedge had little experience with metallic weapons or hoary aromatic plants of the composite family, used in certain recreational tonics. "Mama and Poppa," he said hesitantly, "and poison darts?"

His siblings did not have time to answer, as there was another knock on the door. "Finish your tea," called either Frank or Ernest, "and put on your blindfolds. The trial is about to begin."

The Hedges hurried to follow the instructions of either the volunteer or the villain, and took a few quick sips of their tea, tied their shoes, and wound the pieces of cloth around their eyes. In a moment they heard the door of Room 121 open, and heard Frank or Ernest step toward them.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"We're right here," Tails said. "Can't you see us?"

"Of course not," the manager replied. "I'm also wearing a blindfold. Reach for my hand, and I'll lead you to the trial."

The eldest Hedge reached out in front of him and found a large, rough hand awaiting him. Amy took Tails' other hand, and Sonic took Amy's, and in this way the children were led out of Room 121. The expression "the blind leading the blind," like the expression "Justice is blind," is usually not taken literally, as it simply refers to a confusing situation in which the people in charge know nothing more than the people following them. But as the Hedges learned as they were led through the lobby, the blindfolded leading the blindfolded results in the same sort of confusion. The children could not see anything through their blindfolds, but the room was filled with the sounds of people looking for their companions, bumping up against one another, and running into the walls and furniture. Tails was poked in the eye by someone's chubby finger. Amy was mistaken for someone named Alexia by a man who gave her an enormous hug before learning of his mistake. And someone bumped into Sonic's head, assumed he was an ornamental vase, and tried to place an umbrella in his mouth and a coat on his shoes. Above the noise of the crowd, the Hedges heard the clock strike twelve insistent _Wrong!s_ , and realized they had been sleeping quite some time. It was already Wednesday afternoon, which meant that Thursday, and the arrival of their noble friends and associates, was quite close indeed.

"Attention!" The voice of Justice Tikal Strauss was also quite close indeed, and rang out over the crowd, along with the repeated banging of a gavel, a word which refers to the small hammer used by judges when they want someone's attention. "Attention everyone! The trial is about to begin! Everyone please take your seats!"

"How can we take our seats," a man asked, "when we can't see them?"

"Feel around with your hands," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Move to your right. Further. Further. Further. Furth- "

"Ow!"

"Not that far," the judge said. "There! Sit! Now the rest of you follow his lead!" "How can we do what he did," asked someone else, "if we can't see him?"

"Can we peek?" asked another person.

"No peeking!" Justice Tikal Strauss said sternly. "Our system of justice isn't perfect, but it's the only one we have. I remind you that all three judges of the High Court are bare-eyed, and if you peek you will be guilty of contempt of court! 'Contempt,' by the way, is a word for finding something worthless or dishonorable."

"I know what the word 'contempt' means," snarled a voice the children could not recognize.

"I defined the word for the benefit of the Hedges," Justice Tikal Strauss said, and the children nodded their thanks in the direction of the judge's voice, although all three siblings had known the meaning of "contempt" since a night long ago when Uncle Knuckles had taken them to the movies. "Hedges, take three steps to your right. Three more. One more. There! You've reached your bench. Please sit down."

The Hedges sat down on one of the lobby's wooden benches and listened to the footsteps of the manager as he left them alone and stumbled back into the settling crowd. Finally, it sounded as if everyone had found a seat of some kind or another, and with another few bangs of the gavel and calls for attention, the crowd quieted down and Justice Tikal Strauss began the trial.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," she said, her voice coming from right in front of the Hedges, "and anyone else who happens to be in attendance. It has come to the attention of the High Court that certain wicked deeds have gone unpunished, and that this wickedness is continuing at an alarming rate. We planned to hold a trial on Thursday, but after the death of Mr. Denouement it is clear we should proceed earlier, in the interests of justice and nobility. We will hear what each witness has to say and determine once and for all who is responsible. The guilty parties will be turned over to the authorities, who are waiting outside, making sure that no one will try to escape while the trial is in progress."

"And speaking of guilty parties," Count Eggman added, "when the trial is over, everyone is invited to a very in cocktail party, hosted by me! Wealthy women are particularly welcome!"

"I'm hosting it," snarled the voice of Eudora Squalor, "and fashionable men will be given a free gift."

"All gifts are free," said either Frank or Ernest.

"You're out of order," Justice Tikal Strauss said sternly, banging her gavel. "We are discussing social justice, not social engagements. Now then, will the accused parties please stand and state their names and occupations for the record?"

The Hedges stood up hesitantly.

"You too, Count Eggman," Justice Tikal Strauss said firmly. The wooden bench crackled beside the Hedges, and they realized the notorious villain had also been sitting on the bench, and was now standing beside them.

"Name?" the judge asked.

"Count Eggman," Count Eggman replied. "Occupation?"

"Impresario," he said, using a fancy word for someone who puts on theatrical spectacles. "And are you innocent or guilty?" asked Justice Tikal Strauss.

The children thought they could hear Eggman's filthy teeth slide against his lips as he smiled. "I'm unspeakably innocent," he said, and murmuring spread through the crowd like a ripple on the surface of a pond.

"You may be seated," Justice Strauss said, banging her gavel. "Children, you are next.

Please state your names."

"Tails Hedge," said Tails Hedge.

"Amy Hedge," said Amy Hedge.

"Sonic Hedge," said Sonic Hedge.

The children heard the scratching of a pen, and realized that the judge was writing down everything that was being said. "Occupations?"

The Hedges did not know how to answer this question. The word "occupation," as I'm sure you know, usually refers to a job, but the Hedges' employment was sporadic, a word which here means "consisting of a great number of occupations, held for a short time and under very unusual circumstances." The word can also refer to how one spends one's time, but the siblings hardly liked to think of all the dreadful things that had occupied them recently. Lastly, the word "occupation" can refer to the state one is in, such as being a woman's husband, or a child's guardian, but the youngsters were not certain how such a term could apply to the bewildering history of their lives. The Hedges thought and thought, and finally each gave their answer as they saw fit.

"Volunteer," Tails said. "Concierge," Amy said. "Child," Sonic said.

"I object!" Eggman said beside them. "Their proper occupation is orphan, or inheritor of a large fortune!"

"Your objection is noted," Justice Tikal Strauss said firmly. "Now then, Hedges, are you guilty or innocent?"

Once again, the Hedges hesitated before answering. Justice Tikal Strauss had not asked the children precisely what they were innocent or guilty of, and the expectant hush of the lobby did not make them want to ask the judge to clarify her question. In general, of course, the Hedge children believed themselves to be innocent, although they were certainly guilty, as we all are, of certain deeds that are anything but noble. But the Hedges were not standing in general. They were standing next to Count Eggman. It was Amy who found the words to compare the siblings' innocence and guilt with the innocence and guilt of a man who said he was unspeakably innocent, and after a pause the middle Hedge answered the judge's question.

"We're comparatively innocent," she said, and a ripple went through the crowd again. The children heard the scratching of Justice Tikal Strauss's pen again, and the sound of Geraldine Julienne's enthusiastic voice.

"I can see the headlines now!" she cried. "'everybody is innocent!' Wait until the readers of

 _The Daily Punctilio_ see that!"

"Nobody is innocent," Justice Tikal Strauss said, banging her gavel. "At least, not yet. Now then, all those in the courtroom who have evidence they would like to submit to the court, please approach the judges and do so."

The room erupted into pandemonium, a word which here means "a crowd of blindfolded people attempting to give evidence to three judges." The Hedges sat on the bench and heard people stumbling over one another as they all tried to submit their research to the High Court.

"I submit these newspaper articles!" announced the voice of Geraldine Julienne. "I submit these employment records!" announced Sir.

"I submit these environmental studies!" announced Big.

"I submit these grade books!" announced Mr. Bean Remora.

"I submit these blueprints of banks!" announced Mrs. Mina Bass.

"I submit these administrative records!" announced Vice Principal Router.

"I submit this paperwork!" announced Kahn

"I submit these financial records!" announced Mr. Silver Poe.

"I submit these rule books!" announced Mr. Lesko.

"I submit these constitutions!" announced Mrs. Morrow. "I submit these carnival posters!" announced Scourge.

"I submit these anatomical drawings!" announced Rosy.

"I submit these books," announced Miles, "with both my left and right hands!" "I submit these ruby-encrusted blank pages!" announced Eudora Squalor.

"I submit this book about how wonderful I am!" announced Sally Spats.

"I submit this commonplace book!" announced either Frank or Ernest.

"So do I!" announced either Ernest or Frank.

"I submit my mother!"

This last voice was the first in a parade of voices the Hedges could not recognize. It seemed that everyone in the lobby had something to submit to the High Court, and the Hedges felt as if they were in the middle of an avalanche of observations, research, and other evidence, some of which sounded exculpatory-a word which here means "likely to prove that the Hedges were innocent"- and some of which sounded damning, a word which made the children shudder just to think of it.

"I submit these photographs!"

"I submit these hospital records!" "I submit these magazine articles!"

"I submit these reptile books!"

"I submit these telegrams!"

'I submit these couplets!" 'I submit these maps!"

'I submit these cookbooks!"

'I submit these scraps of paper!" 'I submit these screenplays!"

'I submit these rhyming dictionaries!" 'I submit these love letters!"

'I submit these opera synopses!" "I submit these thesauri!"

"I submit these marriage licenses!"

"I submit these Talmudic commentaries!" "I submit these wills and testaments!"

"I submit these auction catalogs!" "I submit these codebooks!"

"I submit these mycological encyclopedias!" "I submit these menus!"

"I submit these ferry schedules!"

"I submit these theatrical programs!" "I submit these business cards!"

"I submit these memos!" "I submit these novels!" "I submit these cookies!"

"I submit these assorted pieces of evidence I'm unwilling to categorize!"

Finally, the Hedges heard a mighty _thump!_ and the triumphant voice of Jerome Vector Squalor. "I submit this comprehensive history of injustice!" he announced, and the lobby filled with the sound of applause and of hissing, as the volunteers and villains reacted. Justice Tikal Strauss had to bang her gavel quite a few times before the crowd settled down.

"Before the High Court reviews this evidence," the judge said, "we ask each accused person to give a statement explaining their actions. You can take as long as you want to tell your story, but you should leave out nothing important. Count Eggman, you may go first."

The wooden bench crackled again as the villain stood up, and the Hedges heard Count Eggman sigh, and smelled his foul breath. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I'm so incredibly innocent that the word 'innocent' ought to be written on my face in capital letters. The letter I would stand for 'I'm innocent.' The letter N would stand for 'nothing wrong,' which is what I've done. The letter A would stand for-"

"That's not how you spell 'innocent,'" Justice Tikal Strauss interrupted.

"I don't think spelling counts," Count Eggman grumbled.

"Spelling counts," the judge said sternly.

"Well, 'innocence' should be spelled E-G-G-M-A-N," Count Eggman said, "and that's the end of my speech."

The bench crackled as Eggman sat down.

"That's all you have to say?" Justice Tikal Strauss asked in surprise.

"Yep," Count Eggman said.

"I told you not to leave out anything important," the judge reminded him.

"I'm the only important thing," Count Eggman insisted, "and I'm very innocent. I'm sure there's more in that enormous pile of evidence that proves me innocent than there is that proves me guilty."

"Well, all right," the judge said uncertainly. "Hedges, you may now tell us your side of the story."

The Hedges stood up unsteadily, their legs trembling in nervous anticipation, but once again they did not quite know what to say.

"Go on," Justice Tikal Strauss said kindly. "We're listening."

The Hedge orphans clasped hands. Although they had just been notified about the trial a few hours ago, the children felt as if they had been waiting forever to stand and tell their story to anyone who might listen. Although much of their story had been told to Mr. Silver Poe, and noted in Amy's commonplace book, and discussed with the Quagmire triplets and other noble people they had met during their travels, they had never had the opportunity to tell their entire tale, from the dreadful day at Briny Beach when Mr. Silver Poe gave them the terrible news about their parents, to this very afternoon, as they stood at the High Court hoping that all of the villains in their lives would at last be brought to justice. Perhaps there had never been enough time to sit and tell their story just as they wanted to tell it, or perhaps their story was so unhappy that they dared not share all of the wretched details with anyone. Or perhaps the Hedges had simply not encountered anyone who listened to them as well as their parents had. As the siblings stood before the High Court, they could picture the faces of their mother and father, and the expressions they wore when listening to their children. Occasionally, one of the Hedges would be telling their parents a story, and there would be an interruption of some kind-the ringing of the phone, or the loud noise of a siren outside, or even a remark from one of the other siblings. "Hush," the Hedge parents would say to the interruption. "It's not your day in court," they would say, and then they would turn back to the Hedge who was talking, and give them a nod to indicate that the story should continue. The children stood together, as the wooden bench creaked behind them, and started to tell the story of their lives, a story they had waited their lives to tell.

"Well," Tails said, "one afternoon my siblings and I were at Briny Beach . I was dreaming up an invention that could retrieve a rock after you skipped it into the ocean. Amy was examining creatures in tide pools. And Sonic noticed that Mr. Silver Poe was walking toward us."

"Hmm," Justice Tikal Strauss said, but it wasn't a thoughtful kind of "hmm." Tails thought perhaps that the judge was saying "hmm" the way she had said "hmm" to either Frank or Ernest, as a safe answer.

"Go on," said a low, deep voice that belonged to one of the other judges. "Justice Tikal Strauss was merely being thoughtful."

"Mr. Silver Poe told us that there had been a terrible fire," Amy continued. "Our home was destroyed, and our parents were gone."

"Hmm," Justice Tikal Strauss said again, but it wasn't a sympathetic kind of "hmm." Amy thought perhaps that the judge was taking a sip of tea, to fortify herself as the siblings told their story.

"Please continue," said another voice. This one was very hoarse, as if the third judge had been screaming for hours and could hardly talk. "Justice Tikal Strauss was merely being sympathetic."

"Bildungsroman," said Sonic. he meant something along the lines of, "Since that moment, our story has been a long, dreadful education in the wicked ways of the world and the mysterious secrets hidden in all of its corners," but after his siblings were quick to translate, Justice Tikal Strauss uttered another "hmm," and this one was the strangest of all. It was not a thoughtful "hmm," nor did it sound like a safe answer, and it certainly wasn't sympathetic, or the noise someone might make while taking a sip of tea. To Sonic the "hmm" sounded like a noise she'd heard a long time ago, not long after the day on Briny Beach the children were describing. The youngest Hedge had heard the same noise coming from his own mouth, when he was dangling outside Count Eggman's tower room in a bird cage with a piece of tape covering his mouth. Sonic gasped, recognizing the sound just as Amy recognized the voice of the second judge, and Tails recognized the voice of the third. Blindly, the Hedges reached out their hands to clutch one another in panic.

"What shall we do?" Tails whispered, as quietly as possible. "Peek," Sonic whispered back.

"If we peek," Amy whispered, "we'll be guilty of contempt of court." "What are you waiting for, orphans?" asked the low, deep voice. "Yes," said the hoarse one. "Continue your story."

But the Hedge orphans knew they could not continue their story, no matter how long they had been waiting to tell it. At the sound of those familiar voices, they had no choice but to remove their blindfolds. The children did not care if they were guilty of contempt of court, because they knew that if the other two judges were who they thought they were, then the High Court was indeed something they found worthless or dishonorable, and so without any further discussion they unwound the pieces of black cloth that covered their eyes, and the Hedge orphans peeked.

It was a shocking and upsetting peek that awaited the Hedges. Squinting in the sudden light, they peeked straight ahead, where the voices of Justice Tikal Strauss and the other judges had come from. The children found themselves peeking at the concierge desk, which was piled with all the evidence the crowd had submitted, including newspaper articles, employment records, environmental studies, grade books, blueprints of banks, administrative records, paperwork, financial records, rule books, constitutions, carnival posters, anatomical drawings, books, ruby-encrusted blank pages, a book alleging how wonderful Sally Spats was, commonplace books, photographs, hospital records, magazine articles, reptile books, telegrams, couplets, maps, cookbooks, scraps of paper, screenplays, rhyming dictionaries, love letters, opera synopses, thesauri, marriage licenses, Talmudic commentaries, wills and testaments, auction catalogs, codebooks, mycological encyclopedias, menus, ferry schedules, theatrical programs, business cards, memos, novels, cookies, assorted pieces of evidence a certain person was unwilling to categorize, and someone's mother, all of which Dewey Denouement had been hoping to catalog. Missing from the desk, however, was Justice Tikal Strauss, and as the Hedges peeked around the lobby, they saw that another person was missing, too, for there was no one on the wooden bench, only a few etched rings from people wicked enough to set down glasses without using coasters. Frantically, they peeked through the blindfolded crowd that was waiting impatiently for them to continue their story, and finally they spotted Count Eggman at the far side of the room. Justice Tikal Strauss was there, too, tucked in the crook of

Eggman's arm the way you might carry an umbrella if both your hands were full. Neither of Count Eggman's filthy hands were full, but they were both otherwise engaged, a phrase which here means that one hand was covering Justice Tikal Strauss's mouth with tape, so she could only say "hmm," and the other was hurriedly pressing the button requesting an elevator. The harpoon gun, with its last hook gleaming wickedly, was leaning against the wall, within easy reach of the treacherous villain.

All this was a shocking and upsetting peek, of course, but even more shocking and upsetting was what the children saw when they returned their gaze to the concierge desk. For sitting at either end, with their elbows on the pile of evidence, were two villains at whom the children had hoped very much they would never get a peek again, villains of such wickedness that it is far too shocking and upsetting for me to write down their names. I can only describe them as the man with a beard, but no hair, and the woman with hair, but no beard, but to the Hedge orphans, these two villainous judges were another peek at the wicked way of the world.

R

 **Twelve**

 _The_ man with a beard but no hair stood up from the concierge desk, his knees bumping against the little bells that had sent the Hedge orphans on their errands. The woman with hair but no beard pointed a finger at the three children that looked as crooked as she was. The finger had been broken long ago, in a dispute over a game of backgammon, which is another story that would take at least thirteen books to describe, but in the Hedges' story the finger only made this brief appearance as it pointed at the children in alarm.

"The Hedges have taken off their blindfolds!" cried the villainous woman in her low, deep voice.

"Yes!" agreed the villainous man, in his hoarse voice. "They're guilty of contempt of court!"

"We certainly are," Tails agreed fiercely. "This court is worthless and dishonorable!" "Two of the judges are notorious villains," Amy announced over the gasps of the crowd. "Peek!" Sonic cried.

"Nobody peek!" ordered the man with a beard but no hair. "Anyone who peeks will be turned over to the authorities!"

"Take off your blindfolds!" Tails begged the crowd. "Count Eggman is kidnapping Justice Tikal Strauss this very moment!"

"Hmm!" cried Justice Tikal Strauss in agreement, from behind the tape.

"Justice Tikal Strauss is enjoying a piece of saltwater taffy!" the woman with hair but no beard said quickly. "That's why she's talking in hmms!"

"She's not enjoying anything!" Amy cried. "If there are any volunteers in the crowd, take off your blindfolds and help us!"

"The children are trying to trick you!" said the man with a beard but no hair. "Keep your blindfolds on!"

"Yes!" cried the woman with hair but no beard. "They're trying to get all noble people arrested by the authorities!"

"Real McCoy!" Sonic yelled.

"I think the children might be telling the truth," Jerome Vector Squalor said hesitantly.

"Those brats are liars!" Eudora snapped. "They're worse than my ex boyfriend!"

"I believe them!" Big said, scratching at his blindfold. "They've experienced villainy before!"

"I don't!" Sir announced. The children could not tell if he was wearing a blindfold underneath the cloud of smoke that still hung over his head. "They're nothing but trouble!"

"They're telling the truth!" cried Frank, probably, unless it was Ernest.

"They're lying!" cried Ernest, most likely, although it could have been Frank.

"They're good students!" said Mr. Bean Remora.

"They're lousy administrative assistants!" said Vice Principal Router.

"They're bank robbers!" said Mrs. Mina Bass, whose blindfold was covering her small, narrow mask.

"Bank robbers?" Mr. Silver Poe asked. "Egad! Who said that?"

"They're guilty!" cried the man with a beard but no hair, although the High Court wasn't supposed to reach a verdict until all the evidence had been examined.

"They're innocent!" cried Kahn.

"They're freaks!" screamed Scourge .

"They're twisted!" shrieked Rosy.

"They're right-handed! Well I think Tails is left!" yelled Miles.

"They're headlines!" screeched Geraldine Julienne.

"They're escaping!" said the woman with hair but no beard, and this, at least, was a true statement. Tails, Amy, and Sonic realized that the crowd was going to do nothing that would stop Count Eggman from dragging Justice Tikal Strauss away from the trial, and that the people in the lobby would fail them, as so many noble people had failed them before. As the volunteers and villains argued around them, the children made their way quickly and stealthily away from the bench and toward Justice Tikal Strauss and Count Eggman, who was picking up the harpoon gun. If you've ever wanted one more cookie than people said you could have, then you know how difficult it is to move quickly and stealthily at the same time, but if you've had as much experience as the Hedges in dodging the activities of people who were shouting at you, then you know that with enough practice you can move quickly and stealthily just about anywhere, including across an enormous, domed lobby while a crowd calls for your capture.

"We must capture them!" called a voice in the crowd.

"It will take a village to capture the Hedges!" shrieked Mrs. Morrow. "We can't see them through our blindfolds!"

"We don't want to be guilty of contempt of court!" yelled Mr. Lesko. "Let's feel our way toward the hotel entrance so they can't escape!"

"The authorities are guarding the entrance!" the man with a beard but no hair reminded the crowd. "The Hedges are running toward the elevators! Capture them!"

"But don't capture anyone else who happens to be standing near the elevators!" added the woman with hair but no beard, looking hurriedly at Eggman. The sliding doors of an elevator began to open, and the Hedges moved as quickly and stealthily as they could through the crowd who were reaching out blindly in all directions.

"Search the entire hotel," said the villianous man, "and bring us anyone who you find suspicious!"

"We'll tell you if they're villains or not," said the villainous woman. "After all, you can't make such judgements yourselves!"

" _Wrong!_ "

The enormous clock of the Hotel Denouement, the stuff of legend, announced one o'clock, thundering through the room of the blindfolded leading the blindfolded, just as the three siblings reached the elevators. Count Eggman had already dragged Justice Tikal Strauss inside and was hurriedly pressing the button that closes the elevator doors, but Sonic stuck out one of her

feet and held them open, which is something only very brave people attempt. Eggman leaned forward to whisper threateningly at the Hedges.

"Let me go," he whispered threateningly, "or I'll announce to everyone where you are." Eggman, however, was not the only person who could whisper threateningly.

"Let us in," Tails whispered threateningly, "or we'll announce to everyone where you are." "Hmm!" Justice Tikal Strauss said.

Count Eggman glared at the children, and the children glared back, until at last the villain stepped aside and let the Hedges join him and his prisoner in the elevator. "Going down?" he asked, and the children blinked. They had been so intent on escaping the crowd and reaching the judge that they hadn't considered exactly where they might go afterward.

"We're going wherever you go," Amy said.

"I have a few errands to run," Eggman said. "Ha! First I'm going down to the basement, to retrieve the sugar bowl. Ha! Then I'm going up to the roof, to retrieve the Medusoid Mycelium. Ha! Then I'm going down to the lobby, to expose the fungus to everyone in the lobby. Ha! And then, finally, I'm going up to the roof, to escape without being seen by the authorities."

"You'll fail," Sonic said, and Eggman glared down at the youngest Hedge.

"Your mother told me the same thing," he said. "Ha! But one day, when I was seven years old-"

The elevator's doors slid open as it arrived at the basement, and the villain interrupted himself and quickly dragged Justice Tikal Strauss out into the hallway. "Follow me!" he called back to the Hedges. The children, of course, did not want to follow this horrid man any more than they wanted to put cream cheese in their hair, but they looked at one another and could not think of what else they could do.

"You can't retrieve the sugar bowl," Tails said. "You'll never open the Vernacularly Fastened Door."

"Can't I?" Eggman asked, stopping at Room 025. The lock was still stretched securely across the door, as it had been when Sonic left it. "This hotel is like an enormous library," the villain said, "but you can find any item in a library if you have one thing."

"Catalog?" Sonic asked.

"No," Count Eggman replied, and pointed the harpoon gun at the judge. "A hostage." With that, he turned to Justice Tikal Strauss and ripped the tape off her mouth very slowly, so it would sting as much as possible. "You're going to help me open this lock," he informed her, with a wicked smile.

"I will do nothing of the sort!" Justice Tikal Strauss replied. "The Hedges will help me drag you back up to the lobby, where justice can be served!"

"Justice isn't being served in the lobby," Eggman growled, "or anywhere else in the world!"

"Don't be so sure of that!" Justice Tikal Strauss said, and reached behind her back. The Hedges looked hopefully at what she was holding, but their hopes fell when they saw what it was. " _Odious Lusting After Finance_ ," she read out loud, holding up Jerome Vector Squalor's comprehensive history of injustice. "There's enough evidence in here to put you in jail for the rest of your life!"

"Justice Tikal Strauss," Tails said, "your fellow judges on the High Court are associates of Count Eggman. Those villains will never put Eggman in jail."

"It can't be!" Justice Tikal Strauss gasped. "I've known them for years! I've told them everything that was happening to you children, and they were always very interested!"

"Of course they were interested, you fool," Count Eggman said. "They passed along all that information to me, so I could catch up with the orphans! You've been helping me all along, without even knowing it! Ha!"

Justice Tikal Strauss leaned against an ornamental vase, and her eyes filled with tears. "I've failed you again, Hedges," she said. "No matter how I've tried to help you, I've only put you in more danger. I thought justice would be served if you told the High Court your story, but-"

"No one's interested in their story," Count Eggman said scornfully. "Even if you wrote down every last detail, no one would read such a dreadful thing. I've triumphed over the orphans and over any other person foolish or noble enough to stand in my way. It's the unraveling of my story, or, as the French say, the noblesse oblige."

"Denouement" Sonic corrected, but Eggman acted as though he had not heard, and turned his attention to the lock on the door.

"That idiot sub-sub said the first phrase is a description of a medical condition that all three Hedge children share," he muttered, and turned to Justice Tikal Strauss. "Tell me what it is, or prepare to eat harpoon."

"Never," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "I may have failed these children, but I won't fail V.F.D. You'll never get the sugar bowl, no matter what terrible threats you make."

"I'll tell you what the first phrase is," Amy said calmly, and her siblings looked at her in astonishment. Justice Tikal Strauss looked at her in amazement. Even Count Eggman seemed a little puzzled.

"You will?" he asked.

"Certainly," Amy said. "It's just like you said, Count Eggman. Every noble person has failed us. Why should we protect the sugar bowl?"

"Amy!" Tails and Sonic cried, in simultaneous astonishment. "No!" Justice Tikal Strauss cried, in solitary amazement.

Count Eggman looked a little puzzled again, but then shrugged his dusty shoulders. "O.K.," he said, "tell me what medical condition you and your orphan siblings share."

"We're allergic to peppermints," Amy said, and quickly typed A-L-L-E-R-G-I-C-T-O-P- E-P-P-E-R-M-I-N-T-S into the lock. Immediately, there was a muted clicking sound from the typewriter keyboard.

"It's warming up," Count Eggman said, in a delighted wheeze. "Get out of the way, four-eyes! The second phrase is the weapon that left me an orphan, and I can type that one in myself. P- O-Y-Z-"

"Wait!" Amy said, before Eggman could touch the keyboard. "That can't be right. Those letters don't spell anything."

"Spelling doesn't count," said the count.

"Yes, it does," Amy said. "Tell me what the weapon is that left you an orphan, and I'll type it in for you."

Count Eggman gave Amy a slow smile that made the Hedges shudder. "Certainly I'll tell you," he said. "It was poison darts. I don't need to tell you who threw them"

Amy looked at her brothers in blank shock, and then in grim silence typed P-O-I-S-O-N-D-A-R-T-S into the lock, which began to buzz quietly. Count Eggman's eyes shone brightly as he stared at the wires of the lock, which began to shake as they stretched around the hinges of the laundry room door.

"It's working," he said, and ran his tongue over his filthy teeth. "The sugar bowl is so close I can taste it!"

Amy took her commonplace book from her pocket, and read her notes intently for a moment. Then he turned to Justice Tikal Strauss. "Give me that book, please," he said, pointing to Jerome Vector Squalor's book. "The third phrase is the famous unfathomable question in the best- known novel by Richard Wright. Richard Wright was an American novelist of the realist school whose writings illuminated the disparities in race relations. It is likely his work is quoted in a comprehensive history of injustice."

"You can't read that entire book!" Count Eggman said. "The crowd will find us before you finish the first chapter!"

"I'll look in the index," Amy said, "just like I did at Aunt Sticks', when we decoded her note and found her hiding place."

"I always wondered how you did that," Eggman said, sounding almost as if he admired the middle Hedge's research skills. Amy paged to the back of the book, where the index can usually be found. An index, as I'm sure you know, is a list of everything a book contains, and where each item can be found.

"Wright, Richard," Amy read aloud. " _Unfathomable question in Native Son_ , page 394."

"That's the three hundred and nighty - fourth page," Count Eggman explained for no one's benefit, a phrase which here means "even though that was clear to everyone in the hallway."

Amy flipped hurriedly to the proper page and scanned it quickly, her eyes blinking behind her glasses. "I found it," she said quietly. "It's quite an interesting question, actually."

"No one cares about interesting questions!" Eggman said. "Type it in this instant!"

Amy smiled, and began typing furiously into the typewriter keyboard. His sisters stepped forward, and each of them put a hand on their sisters' shoulder.

"Why do this?" Sonic asked.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "Why are you helping Eggman get into the laundry room?"

The middle Hedge typed the last word into the keyboard, which was "T-O-P-P-L-I-N- G," and then looked at her brothers. "Because the sugar bowl isn't there," she said, and pushed open the door.

"What do you mean?" Count Eggman demanded. "Of course the sugar bowl is in there!"

"I'm afraid Eggman is right," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "You heard what Dewey said. When the crows were shot with the harpoon gun, they fell onto the birdpaper and dropped the sugar bowl into the funnel."

"So it would appear," Amy said slyly.

"Enough nonsense!" Count Eggman shouted, waving his harpoon gun in the air and stomping into the laundry room. In just a few moments, however, it was clear that the middle Hedge had spoken the truth. The laundry room of the Hotel Denouement was very small, just large enough to hold a few washing and drying machines, some piles of dirty sheets, and a few plastic jugs of what were presumably some extremely flammable chemicals, just as Dewey had said. A metal tube hung over one corner of the ceiling, allowing steam from the machines to float up the tube and outside, but there was no sign that a sugar bowl had fallen through the funnel and dropped out the metal tube to the wooden floor of the laundry room. With a hoarse, angry roar, Count Eggman opened the doors of the washing and drying machines and slammed them closed, and then picked up the piles of dirty sheets and sent them tumbling onto the floor.

"Where is it?" he snarled, drops of spit flying from his furious mouth. "Where's the sugar bowl?"

"It's a secret," Amy said. "A secret that died with Dewey Denouement."

Count Eggman turned to face the Hedge orphans, who had never seen him look this frightening. His eyes had never gleamed as brightly, and his smile had never been as peccant, a word which here means "so hungry for evil deeds as to be unhealthy." It was not unlike the face of Dewey had been as he sank into the water, as if the villain's own wickedness was causing him great pain. "He won't be the only volunteer who dies today," he said, in a terrible whisper. "I'll destroy every soul in his hotel, sugar bowl or no sugar bowl. I'll unleash the

Medusoid Mycelium, and volunteers and villains alike will perish in agony. My comrades have failed me as often as my enemies, and I'm eager to be rid of them. Then I'll push that boat off the roof, and sail away with-"

"You can't push that boat off the roof," Tails said. "It would never survive the fall, due to the force of gravity."

"I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies," Eggman muttered.

"I'll get that boat off the roof," Tails said calmly, and his siblings looked at him in astonishment. Justice Tikal Strauss looked at her in amazement. Even Count Eggman seemed a little puzzled.

"You will?" he asked.

"Certainly," Tails said. "It's just like you said, Count Eggman. Every noble person has failed us. Why shouldn't we help you escape?"

"Tails!" Amy and Sonic cried, in simultaneous astonishment. "No!" Justice Tikal Strauss cried, in solitary amazement.

Count Eggman still looked puzzled, but gave the eldest Hedge a shrug. "O.K.," he said. "What do you need?"

"A few of those dirty sheets," Tails said. "I'll tie them together and make a drag chute, just like I did in the Mortmain Mountains when I stopped the caravan from falling off the mountain."

"I always wondered how you did that," Eggman said, looking at the eldest Hedge as if he respected his inventing skills. Tails walked into the laundry room and gathered some sheets into his arms, trying to choose the least dirty of the bunch.

"Let's go to the roof," she said quietly Her siblings stepped forward, and each of them put a hand on their sister's shoulder.

"Why do this?" Sonic asked.

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "Why are you helping Eggman escape?"

The eldest Hedge looked at the sheets in his hand, and then at his siblings. "Because he'll take us with him," she said.

"Why would I do that?" Eggman asked.

"Because you need more than a one-person crew," Tails said slyly, "and we need to leave this hotel without being spotted by the authorities."

"I suppose that's true," Eggman said. "Well, you would have ended up in my clutches in any case. Come along."

"Not yet," Sonic said. "One more thing."

Everyone stared at the youngest Hedge, who was wearing an expression so unfathomable that even her siblings could not tell what she was thinking. "One more thing?" Count Eggman repeated, staring down at Sonic. "What could that be?"

The two eldest Hedges looked at their brother, and felt a cold ripple in their stomachs, as if a stone had somehow been dropped straight into the siblings. It is very difficult to make one's way in this world without being wicked at one time or another, when the world's way is so wicked to begin with. When unfathomable situations arose in the lives of the Hedges, and they did not know what to do, the children often felt as if they were balancing very delicately on top of something very fragile and very dangerous, and that if they weren't careful they might fall a very long way into a sea of wickedness. Tails felt this delicate balance when he offered to help Count Eggman escape, even though it meant that he and his siblings could escape, too, and Amy felt this delicate balance when she helped Eggman unlock the laundry room door, even though the sugar bowl was not to be found inside. And of course, all three Hedge orphans felt this delicate balance when they thought about Dewey Denouement, and that terrible instant when the weapon in their hands brought about his death. But as Sonic answered Count Eggman's question, the clock of the Hotel Denouement struck two _Wrong!s_ , and his siblings wondered if they had lost their balance at last and were tumbling away from all the noble people in the world.

"Burn down hotel," Sonic said, and all three Hedge orphans felt as if they were falling.

R

 **Thirteen**

 _"Ha!"_ Count Eggman crowed. "This takes the cake!" He was using an expression which here means "I find this especially amusing and outrageous!" although Dewey Denouement's underwater catalog contains a list of twenty-seven cakes that Eggman has stolen. With a look of treacherous glee he reached down and patted Sonic Hedge on the head, using the hand that wasn't clutching the harpoon gun. "After all this time, the littlest orphan wants to follow in my footsteps!" he cried. "I knew I was a good guardian after all!"

"You're not a good guardian," Tails said, "and Sonic's not an arsonist. My brother doesn't know what she's saying."

"Burn down hotel," Sonic insisted.

"Are you feeling all right, Sonic?" Amy asked, peering into her brother's eyes. She was worried that the Medusoid Mycelium, which had threatened the life of the youngest Hedge just days ago, was affecting him in some sinister way. Amy had researched a way to dilute the treacherous fungus, but she wondered now if dilution was not enough.

"I feel fine," Sonic said. "Burn down hotel."

"That's my boyl!" Count Eggman cried. "I only wish Sally had your spunk! With all the errands I had to do, burning down this hotel hadn't even occurred to me. But even when you're very busy, you should always take time for your hobbies."

"Your hobbies," Justice Tikal Strauss said, "are nothing but villainy, Count Eggman. The Hedges may or may not want to join you in wickedness, but I'll do anything in my power to stop you."

"There's nothing in your power," Eggman sneered. "Your fellow judges are comrades of mine, your fellow volunteers are running around the lobby of this hotel wearing blindfolds, and I have the harpoon gun."

"I have a comprehensive history of injustice!" Justice Tikal Strauss cried. "This book should be good for something!"

The villain did not continue his argument, but merely pointed the weapon at the judge. "You orphans will start the fire here in the laundry room," he said, "while I make sure Justice Tikal Strauss doesn't stop us."

"Yes, sir," Sonic said grimly, and reached for his siblings' hands. "No!" Justice Tikal Strauss cried.

"Why are you doing this, Sonic?" Tails asked his brother. "You're going to hurt innocent people!"

"Why are you helping Count Eggman burn down this building?" Amy cried.

Sonic looked at the laundry room, and then up at his siblings. In silence, he shook his head, as if this were not the time to discuss such matters. "Help me," he said, and he did not have to say anything more. Although Tails and Amy found their brothers actions unfathomable, they followed her into the laundry room as Eggman uttered a succinct laugh of triumph.

"Ha!" Count Eggman cried. "Pay attention, orphans, and I'll teach you some of my best tricks. First, spread those dirty sheets all over the floor. Then, take those jugs of extremely flammable chemicals and pour them all over the sheets."

In silence, Tails spread the rest of the sheets over the laundry room's wooden floor, while Amy and Sonic walked over to the plastic jugs, opened them, and spilled them all over the sheets. A strong, bitter smell wafted from the laundry room as the children turned to Eggman and asked what was next.

"What is next?" Sonic asked.

"Next is a match and some kindling," Eggman replied, and reached into his pocket with the hand that wasn't holding the gun. "I always carry matches on my person," he said, "just as my enemies always carry kindling." He leaned forward and snatched _Odious Lusting After Finance_ out of Justice Tikal Strauss's hands. "This book is good for something," he said, and tossed it into the center of the dirty sheets, narrowly missing the siblings as they walked into the hallway. Jerome Vector Squalor's book opened as it landed, and the children saw what looked like a

carefully drawn diagram, with arrows and dotted lines and a paragraph of notation underneath.

The Hedges leaned forward to see if they could read what the injustice expert had written, and caught only the word "passageway" before Eggman lit a match and tossed it expertly onto the page. The paper caught on fire at once, and the book began to burn.

"Oh," Sonic said quietly, and leaned against his siblings. All three Hedges, and the adults standing with them, stared into the laundry room in silence.

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding-which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together-blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author, from the swarm of termites that tried to destroy his notes, to the large boulder that someone rolled onto the illustrator as he sat by the edge of the pond waiting for the delivery of the manuscript. Justice Tikal Strauss gazed at the book with a shocked frown, perhaps thinking of Jerome Vector Squalor's research and all the villains it might have brought to justice. Count Eggman stared at the book with a smug smile, perhaps thinking of all of the other libraries he had destroyed. But you and I know there is no "perhaps" about what the Hedge orphans were thinking as they stared at the flames devouring the comprehensive history of injustice. Tails, Amy, and Sonic were thinking of the fire that took their parents and their home and dropped them into the world to fend for themselves, a phrase which here means "go first from guardian to guardian, and then from desperate situation to desperate situation, trying to survive and solve the mysteries that hung over their heads like smoke." The Hedge orphans were thinking of the first fire that had come into their lives, and wondering if this one would be the last.

"We'd best get away from here," Count Eggman said, breaking the silence. "In my experience, once the flames reach the chemicals, the fire will spread very quickly. I'm afraid the cocktail party will be canceled, but if we hurry, there's still time to infect the guests of his hotel with the Medusoid Mycelium before we escape. Ha! To the elevators!"

Twirling the harpoon gun in his hands, the villain strode down the hallway, dragging the judge as he went, and the Hedges hurried to follow. When they reached the elevator, the children looked at a sign posted near one of the ornamental vases. The sign was identical to one posted in the lobby, and it is a sign you have probably seen yourself. in case of fire, it said, in fancy script, use stairs. do not use elevator.

"Stairs," Sonic said, pointing at the sign. "Ignore that," Eggman said scornfully, punching the button to summon an elevator.

"Dangerous," Sonic pointed out. "Take the stairs."

"You may have had the idea to burn down the hotel," Count Eggman said, "but I'm still the boss, baby! We won't get to the fungus in time if we take the stairs! We're taking the elevator!"

"Drat," Sonic said quietly, and frowned in thought. Tails and Amy looked at their sister curiously, wondering why a child who didn't mind setting a hotel on fire would be upset over something like an elevator. But then Sonic gazed up at his siblings with a sly smile, and uttered one word that made everything clear.

"Preludio," he said, and after a moment his siblings grinned.

"What?'" Eggman asked sharply, and punched the button over and over again, which never helps.

"What my sister means," Tails said, "is that he hopes we survive this," but that is not what the youngest Hedge meant at all. By "Preludio," his siblings knew, Sonic was referring to the Hotel Preludio, and the weekend vacation the entire Hedge family had spent there. As Vanilla Snicket had mentioned, the Hotel Preludio was a lovely place, and I am happy to report that it is still standing, like a small mercy, and that its ballroom still has its famous chandeliers, which are shaped like enormous jellyfish and move up and down in time to the music that the orchestra plays, and that the bookstore in the lobby still specializes in the work of American novelists of the realist school, and the outdoor swimming pool is still as beautiful as it ever was, its reflection of the hotel windows shimmering whenever anyone dives in to swim laps. But the Hedge orphans were not remembering the chandeliers, or the bookstore, or even the swimming pool, where Sonic first learned to blow bubbles. They were remembering a prank their father had taught them, when he was in one of his whimsical moods, that can be played in any elevator. The prank, a word which here means "joke played on someone with whom you are sharing an elevator," is best played at the moment when you are about to get off the elevator, and your fellow passengers are heading to a higher story. The Hedges' mother had objected to their father teaching them such a prank, as she said it was undignified, but their father had pointed out it was no more undignified than doing magic tricks with dinner rolls, which their mother had done that very morning in the hotel restaurant, and she reluctantly agreed to participate in the prank. This particular moment in the Hedges' lives, of course, was not the best one for a prank, but Tails and Amy saw immediately what their brother had in mind, and when the sliding doors opened and Count Eggman stomped inside the elevator, the three Hedges followed him and immediately pressed every single button. When the Hedges' father had done this after exiting the elevator, it meant that the remaining passenger, a tiresome woman named Eleanora. had been forced to visit every story on the way up to her room, but here in the Hotel Denouement, the prank served a dual purpose, a phrase which here means "enabled the Hedges to do two things at once."

"What are you doing?" Eggman shrieked. "I'll never reach the Medusoid Mycelium in time to poison everyone!"

"We'll be able to warn as many people as possible that the building is on fire!" cried Justice Tikal Strauss.

"Dual purpose," Sonic said, and shared a small smile with his siblings as the elevator reached the lobby and opened its doors. The enormous, domed room was nearly empty, and the Hedges could see that everyone had followed the advice of the two wicked judges of the High Court, and were wandering blindfolded around the hotel.

"Fire!" cried Tails immediately knowing the doors would slide shut in an instant. "Attention everyone! There's a fire in the hotel! Please leave at once!"

The man with a beard but no hair was standing nearby, with his hand on Jerome Vector Squalor's shoulder so he could push the injustice expert around. "Fire?" he said, in his strange, hoarse voice. "Good work, Eggman!"

"What do you mean, good work?" demanded Vector, a frown appearing below his blindfold.

"I meant to say, 'there's Eggman!'" the man said hurriedly, pushing Jerome in the direction of the elevator. "Capture him! He needs to be brought to the authorities!"

"Eggman is here?" asked probably Frank, who was feeling his way along the wall along with his brother. "I'm going to capture him!"

"Where are the Hedges?" demanded probably Ernest. "I'm going to capture them!"

"In the elevator!" shouted the woman with hair but no beard from across the lobby, but the sliding doors were already closing.

"Call the fire department!" Tails cried desperately.

"Which one?" was the reply, but the children could not tell if it came from Frank or Ernest, and the doors slid shut on this one last glimpse of the villains and volunteers before elevator began its rise to the second story.

"Those judges promised that if I waited until tomorrow I'd see all my enemies destroyed," Count Eggman grumbled, "and now they're trying to capture me. I knew they'd fail me some day."

The Hedges did not have time to point out that Eggman had also failed the judges, by planning to poison them, along with everyone else in the lobby, with the Medusoid Mycelium, because the elevator immediately stopped on the second story and opened its doors.

"There's a fire in the hotel!" Amy called into the hallway. "Everyone leave at once!"

"A fire?" said Eudora Squalor. The Hedges were surprised to see that this treacherous woman was still wearing her blindfold, but perhaps she had decided that pieces of black cloth were in. "Who said that?"

"It's Amy Hedge," Amy Hedge said. "You need to get out of the hotel!"

"Don't listen to that cakesniffer!" cried Sally Spats, who was running a hand over an ornamental vase. "He's just trying to escape from us! Let's take off our blindfolds and peek!"

"Don't take off your blindfolds!" cried Count Eggman. "Those Hedges are guilty of contempt of court, and they're trying to trick you into joining them! There's no fire! Whatever you do, don't leave the hotel!"

"We're not tricking you!" Amy said. "Eggman is tricking you! Please believe us!"

"I don't know who to believe," Eudora said scornfully "You orphans are as dishonest as my ex-boyfriend."

"Leave us alone!" Sally ordered, bumping into a wall. "We can find our own way!"

The doors slid shut before the Hedges could argue any further, and indeed the children never argued with either unpleasant female again. In a moment, the elevator arrived at the third story, and Sonic raised her voice so that she could be heard by anyone, treacherous or noble, in the hallway.

"Fire!" she cried. "Use stairs. Do not use elevator!"

"Sonic Hedge?" Mr. Silver Poe called, recognizing the child's voice. The banker was facing the entirely wrong direction, and holding a white handkerchief up to his black blindfold. "Please don't add the false reporting of fire to your list of crimes! You're already guilty of contempt of court, and perhaps murder!"

"It's not false!" Justice Tikal Strauss exclaimed. "There really is a fire, Mr. Silver Poe! Leave this hotel!"

"I can't leave," Mr. Silver Poe replied, coughing into his handkerchief. "I'm still in charge of the Hedges' affairs and their parents' fortune but maybe I wil-"

The elevator doors closed before Mr. Silver Poe could finish his word, and the Hedges were taken away from the banker one last time, and with each stop of the elevator, I'm sorry to say, it was more or less the same. The Hedges saw Mrs. Mina Bass on the third story, still wearing her small blond wig like a snowcap on the top of a mountain peak, and her blindfold, stretched over her small, narrow mask, and they saw Mr. Bean Remora, who was wandering around the seventh story with Vice Principal Router. They saw Geraldine Julienne, who was using her microphone the way some blind people use a cane, and they saw Big and Sir, who were holding hands so as not to lose one another, and they saw Scourge and Rosy and Miles, who were holding the birdpaper Amy had hung outside the window of the sauna, and they saw Mr. Lesko arguing with Mrs. Morrow, and they saw a goat with a guitar making friends with a woman in a crow-shaped hat, and they saw many people they did not recognize, either as volunteers or as villains, who were wandering the hallways of the hotel to capture anyone they might find suspicious. Some of these people believed the Hedges when they told them the news of the fire, and some of these people believed Count Eggman when he told them that the Hedges were lying, and some of these people believed Justice Tikal Strauss when she told them that Count Eggman was lying when he said the Hedges were lying when they told them the news of the fire. But the elevator's stop on each story of the hotel was very brief, and the children had only a glimpse of each of these people. They heard Mrs. Mina Bass mutter something about a getaway car, and they heard Mr. Bean Remora wonder something about fried bananas. They heard Router worry about his violin case, and Geraldine squeal about headlines, and they heard Big and Sir bicker over whether or not fires were good for the lumber industry. They heard Scourge ask if the plan for the hors d'ouvres was still in operation, and they heard Rosy ask about plucking the feathers off crows, and they heard Miles complain that he didn't know whether to hold the birdpaper in his right hand or his left hand, and they heard Mr. Lesko insult Mrs. Morrow, and the bearded goat sing a song to the

woman with the crow-shaped hat, and they heard a man call for Max and a woman call for her mother and dozens of people whisper to and shout at, argue with and agree upon, angrily accuse and meekly defend, furiously compliment and kindly insult dozens of other people, both inside and outside the Hotel Denouement, whose names the Hedges recognized, forgot, and had never heard before. Each story had its story, and each story's story was unfathomable in the Hedge orphans' short journey, and many of the stories' stories are unfathomable to me, even after all these lonely years and all this lonely research. Perhaps some of these stories are clearer to you, because you have spied upon the people involved. Perhaps Mrs. Mina Bass has changed her name and lives near you, or perhaps Mr. Bean Remora's name is the same, and he lives far away. Perhaps Router now works as a grocery store clerk, or Geraldine Julienne now teaches arts and crafts. Perhaps Mr. Silver Poe is your best friend or your god father, Perhaps Big and Sir are no longer partners, and you have had the occasion to study one of them as he sat across from you on a bus, or perhaps Scourge , Rosy, and Miles are still comrades, and you have followed these unfathomable people after noticing that one of them used both hands equally. Perhaps Mr. Lesko is now your neighbor, or Mrs. Morrow is now your sister, or your mother, or your aunt or wife or even your husband. Perhaps the noise you hear outside your door is a bearded man trying to climb into your window, or perhaps it is a woman in a crow-shaped hat hailing a taxi. Perhaps you have spotted the managers of the Hotel Denouement, or the judges of the High Court, or the waiters of Cafe Salmonella or the Anxious Clown, or perhaps you have met an expert on injustice or become one yourself. Perhaps the people in your unfathomable life, and their unfathomable stories, are clear to you as you make your way in the world, but when the elevator stopped for the last time, and the doors slid open to reveal the tilted roof of the Hotel Denouement, the Hedges felt as if they were balancing very delicately on a mysterious and perplexing heap of unfathomable mysteries. They did not know who would survive the fire they had helped set, and who would perish. They did not know who thought they were volunteers and who thought they were villains, or who believed they were innocent and who believed they were guilty. And they did not know if their own observations, errands, and deeds meant that they were noble, or wicked, or somewhere in between. As they stepped out of the elevator and walked across the rooftop sunbathing salon, the Hedge orphans felt as if their entire lives were like a book, filled with crucial information, that had been set aflame, like the comprehensive history of injustice that was now just ashes in a fire growing more enormous by the second.

"Look!" cried Count Eggman, leaning over the edge of the hotel and pointing down. The Hedges looked, expecting to see the enormous, calm surface of the pond reflecting the Hotel Denouement back at them like an enormous mirror. But the air was stained with patches of thick, black smoke that poured out of the basement windows as the fire began to spread, and the surface of the pond looked like a series of tiny mirrors, each broken into strange, unfathomable shapes. Here and there, among the smoke and mirrors, the children could see the tiny figures running this way and that, but could not tell if they were the authorities on the ground, or people in the hotel running to escape from the blaze.

Eggman continued to gaze downward, and the Hedges could not tell if he looked pleased or disappointed. "Thanks to you orphans," he said, "it's too late to destroy everyone with the Medusoid Mycelium, but at least we got to start a fire."

Justice Tikal Strauss was still gazing at the smoke pouring from the windows and rising into the sky, and her expression was equally unfathomable. "Thanks to you orphans," she said quietly to the Hedges, "this hotel will be destroyed by fire, but at least we stopped Eggman from releasing the fungus."

"The fire isn't burning very quickly," Eggman said. "Many people will escape." "The fire isn't burning slowly, either," Justice Tikal Strauss said. "Some people won't."

The Hedge orphans looked at one another, but before anyone could say anything further, the entire building trembled, and the children had to struggle to keep their balance on the tilted roof. The shiny sunbathing mats tumbled across the salon, and the water in the swimming pool splashed against the side of the large, wooden boat, dampening the figurehead of the octopus attacking a man in a diving suit.

"The fire is weakening the structural foundations of the building," Tails said. "We have to get out of here," Amy said.

"Pronto," Sonic said.

Without another word the Hedges turned from the adults and strode quickly toward the boat. Shifting the pile of sheets into one hand, Tails took off his concierge hat, reached into his pocket, and found the ribbon Vanilla Snicket had given him, which he used to tie up his bangs. Amy reached into her pocket and found her commonplace book, which she began to flip through. Sonic did not reach into his pocket, but he scraped his sharp teeth together thoughtfully and jogged on the spot, as she suspected they might be needed.

Tails stared critically at the boat. "I'll attach the drag chute to the figurehead," he said. "I should be able to tie a Devil's Tongue knot around the helmet of the diver." he paused for a moment. "That's where the Medusoid Mycelium is hidden," he said. "Count Eggman kept it there, where no one would think of looking."

Amy stared critically at his notes. "I'll angle the sail to catch the wind," he said. "Otherwise, a heavy object like this would fall straight down into the water." He paused for a moment, too. "That's what happened to the sugar bowl," he said. "Dewey Denouement let everyone think it had fallen into the laundry room, so no one would find it in the pond."

"Spatulas as oars," Sonic said, pointing to the implements that Scourge had used to flip over the sunbathers.

"Good idea," Amy agreed and gazed out to the gray, troubled waters of the sea. "Maybe our friends will find us. Jet should be flying this way, with Vanilla Snicket and the Quagmires."

"And Fiona," Tails added. "No," Sonic said.

"What do you mean?" Tails asked, stepping carefully from the edge of the pool onto the side of the boat, where she began to climb a rope ladder up to the figurehead.

"They said they would arrive by Thursday," Amy said, helping Sonic climb aboard and then stepping onto the boat himself. The deck was about the size of a large mattress, big

enough to hold the Hedges and perhaps one or two more passengers. "It's Wednesday afternoon."

"The fire," Sonic said, and pointed at the smoke as it rose toward the sky.

The two older Hedges gasped. They had almost forgotten that Vanilla had told them she would be watching the skies, looking for a signal that would cancel Thursday's gathering.

"That's why you thought of lighting the fire," Tails said, hurriedly tying the sheets around the figurehead. "It's a signal."

"V.F.D. will see it," Amy said, "and know that all their hopes have gone up in smoke." Sonic nodded. "The last safe place," she said, "is safe no more."

It was an impressive sentence for the youngest Hedge, but a sad one.

"Maybe our friends will find us anyway," Tails said. "They might be the last noble people we know."

"If they're truly noble," Amy said, "they might not want to be our friends."

Tails nodded, and his eyes filled with tears. "You're right," he admitted. "We killed a man."

"Accident," Sonic said firmly.

"And burned down a hotel," Amy said. "Signal," Sonic said.

"We had good reasons," Tails said, "but we still did bad things."

"We want to be noble," Amy said, "but we've had to be treacherous."

"Noble enough," Sonic said, but the building trembled again, as if shaking its head in disagreement. Tails hung on to the figurehead and Amy and Sonic hung on to each other as the boat bumped against the sides of the swimming pool.

"Help us!" Tails cried to the adults, who were still staring at the rising smoke. "Grab those spatulas, and push the boat to the edge of the roof!"

"Don't boss me around!" Eggman growled, but he followed the judge to a corner of the roof where the spatulas lay, their mirrors reflecting the afternoon sun and the sky as it darkened with smoke. Each adult grabbed one spatula, and poked at the boat the way you might poke at a spider you were trying to get out of your bathtub. Bump! Bump! The sailboat bumped against the edge of the pool, and then jostled its way out of the pool, where it slowly slid, with a loud scraping sound, to the far edge of the roof. The Hedges hung on tightly as the front half of the boat kept sliding across the mirrors of the salon, until it was hanging over

nothing but the smoky air. The boat tipped this way and that, in a delicate balance between the roof of the hotel and the sea below.

"Climb aboard!" Tails cried, giving her knots one last tug.

"Of course I'll climb aboard!" Eggman announced, narrowing his eyes at the helmet of the figurehead. "I'm the captain of this boat!" He threw his spatula onto the deck, narrowly missing Amy and Sonic, and then bounded onto the ship, making it teeter wildly on the edge of the building.

"You too, Justice Tikal Strauss!' Amy called, but the judge just put down her spatula and looked sadly at the children.

"No," she said, and the children could see she was crying. "I won't go. It's not right." "What else can we do?" Sonic said, but Justice Tikal Strauss just shook her head.

"I won't run from the scene of a crime," she said. "You children should come with me, and we'll explain everything to the authorities."

"They might not believe us," Tails said, readying the drag chute, "or there might be enemies lurking in their ranks, like the villains in the High Court."

"Perhaps," the judge said, "but that's no excuse for running away."

Count Eggman gave his former neighbor a scornful look, and then turned to the Hedges. "Let her burn to a crisp if she wants," he said, "but it's time for us to go."

Justice Tikal Strauss took a deep breath, and then stepped forward and put her hand on the hideous wooden carving, as if she meant to drag the whole boat back onto the hotel. "There are people who say that criminal behavior is the destiny of children from a broken home," she said, through her tears. "Don't make this your destiny, Hedges."

Amy stood at the mast, adjusting the controls of the sail. "This boat," she said, "is the only home we have."

"I've been following you all this time," she said, her grip tightening on the figurehead. "You've always been just out of my grasp, from the moment Mr. Silver Poe took you away from the theater in his car to the moment Vanilla Snicket took you through the hedges in her taxi. I won't let you go, Hedges!"

Sonic stepped toward the judge, and for one moment her siblings thought she was going to step off the boat. But then she merely looked into the judge's weeping eyes, and gave her a very sad smile.

"Good-bye," she said, and the Hedge opened her mouth and bit the hand of justice. With a cry of pain and frustration, Justice Tikal Strauss let go of the figurehead, and the building trembled again, sending the judge tumbling to the ground, and the boat tumbling off the roof, just as the clock of the Hotel Denouement announced the hour for the very last time.

 _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!_ The clock struck three times, and the three Hedges screamed as they hurtled toward the sea, and even Count Eggman cried "Mommy!" as it seemed for a terrible moment that their luck had run out at last, and that the boat would not survive the fall, due to the force of gravity. But then Tails let go of the dirty sheets, and the drag chute billowed into the air, looking almost like another patch of smoke against the sky, and Amy moved the sail to catch the wind, and the boat stopped falling and started to glide, the way a bird will catch the wind, and rest its wings for a few moments, particularly if it is tired from carrying something heavy and important. For a moment, the boat floated down through the air, like something in a magical story, and even in their panic and fear the Hedges could not help marveling at the way they were escaping. Finally, with a mighty splash! the boat landed in the ocean, quite a distance from the burning hotel. For another terrible moment, it felt like the boat was going to sink into the water, just as Dewey Denouement had sunk into the pond, guarding his underwater catalog and all its secrets, and leaving the woman he loved pregnant and distraught. But the sail caught the wind, and the figurehead righted itself, and Eggman picked up his spatula and handed it to Sonic.

"Start rowing," he ordered, and then began to cackle, his eyes shining bright. "You're in my clutches at last, orphans," he said. "We're all in the same boat."

The Hedges looked at the villain, and then at the shore. For a moment they were tempted to jump overboard and swim back toward the city and away from Eggman. But when they looked at the smoke, pouring from the windows of the hotel, and the flames, curling around the lilies and moss that someone had grown with such care on the walls, they knew it would be just as dangerous on land. They could see the tiny figures of people standing outside the hotel, fiercely pointing toward the sea, and they saw the building tremble. It seemed that the Hotel Denouement would soon be sent toppling, and the children wanted to be far away. Dewey had promised them that they wouldn't be at sea anymore, but at this moment the sea, for the Hedges, was the last safe place.

Richard Wright, an American novelist of the realist school, asks a famous unfathomable question in his best-known novel, _Native Son_. "Who knows when some slight shock," he asks, "disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?" It is a difficult question to read, almost as if it is in some sort of code, but after much research I have been able to make some sense of its mysterious words. "Social order," for instance, is a phrase which may refer to the systems people use to organize their lives, such as the Dewey Decimal System, or the blindfolded procedures of the High Court. And "thirsty aspiration" is a phrase which may refer to things people want, such as the Hedge fortune, or the sugar bowl, or a safe place that lonely and exhausted orphans can call home. So when Mr. Wright asks his question, he might be wondering if a small event, such as a stone dropping into a pond, can cause ripples in the systems of the world, and tremble the things that people want, until all this rippling and trembling brings down something enormous, such as a building.

The Hedges, of course, did not have a copy of Native Son on the wooden boat that served as their new home, but as they gazed across the water at the Hotel Denouement, they were asking themselves a question not unlike Mr. Wright's. Tails, Amy, and Sonic wondered about all the things, large and small, that they had done. They wondered about their observations as flaneurs, which left so many mysteries unsolved. They wondered about all their errands as concierges, which brought about so much trouble. And they wondered if they were still the noble volunteers they wanted to be, or if, as the fire made its wicked way

through the hotel, and the building threatened to topple, it was their destiny to become something else. The Hedge orphans stood in the same boat as Count Eggman, the notorious villain, and looked out at the sea, where they hoped they could find their noble friends, and wondered what else they could do, and who they might become.


	14. The End

_For Cream_

 _I cherished, you perished, The world's been nightmarished._

R

 **One**

If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never

again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable.

In this way, the story of the Hedge orphans is like an onion, and if you insist on reading each and every thin, papery layer in A Series of Unfortunate Events, your only reward will be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in your eyes. Even if you have read the first twelve volumes of the Hedges' story, it's not too late to stop peeling away the layers, and to put this book back on the shelf to wither away while you read something less complicated and overwhelming. The end of this unhappy chronicle is like its bad beginning, as each misfortune only reveals another, and another, and another, and only those with the stomach for this strange and bitter tale should venture any farther into the Hedge onion. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.

The Hedge orphans would have been happy to see an onion, had one come bobbing along as they traveled across the vast and empty sea in a boat the size of a large bed but not nearly as comfortable. Had such a vegetable appeared, Tails, the eldest Hedge, would have tied up his bangs in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, and in moments would have invented a device to retrieve the onion from the water. Amy, the middle sibling and the only girl, would have remembered useful facts from one of the thousands of books she had read, and been able to identify which type of onion it was, and whether or not it was edible. And Sonic, who was just scarcely out of babyhood, would have sliced the onion into bite-sized pieces with his unusually sharp teeth, and put his newly developed cooking skills to good use in order to turn a simple onion into something quite tasty indeed. The elder Hedges could imagine their brother announcing "Soubise!" which was his way of saying "Dinner is served."

But the three children had not seen an onion. Indeed, they had not seen much of anything during their ocean voyage, which had begun when the Hedges had pushed the large, wooden boat off the roof of the Hotel Denouement in order to escape from the fire engulfing the hotel, as well as the authorities who wanted to arrest the children for arson and murder. The wind and tides had quickly pushed the boat away from the burning hotel, and by sunset the hotel and all the other buildings in the city were a distant, faraway blur. Now, the following morning, the only things the Hedges had seen were the quiet, still surface of the sea and the gray gloom of the sky. The weather reminded them of the day at Briny Beach when the Hedges had learned of the loss of their parents and their home in a terrible fire, and the children spent much of their time in silence, thinking about that dreadful day and all of the dreadful

days that had followed. It almost would have been peaceful to sit in a drifting boat and think about their lives, had it not been for the Hedges' unpleasant companion.

Their companion's name was Count Eggman, and it had been the Hedge orphans' misfortune to be in this dreadful man's company since they had become orphans and he had become their guardian. Eggman had hatched scheme after scheme in an attempt to get his filthy hands on the enormous fortune the Hedge parents had left behind, and although each scheme had failed, it appeared as if some of the villain's wickedness had rubbed off on the children, and now Eggman and the Hedges were all in the same boat. Both the children and the count were responsible for a number of treacherous crimes, although at least the Hedge orphans had the decency to feel terrible about this, whereas all Count Eggman had been doing for the past few days was bragging about it.

"I've triumphed!" Count Eggman reiterated, a word which here means "announced for the umpteenth time." He stood proudly at the front of the boat, leaning against a carving of an octopus attacking a man in a diving suit that served as the boat's figurehead. "You orphans thought you could escape me, but at last you're in my clutches!"

"Yes, Eggman," Tails agreed wearily. The eldest Hedge did not bother to point out that as they were all alone in the middle of the ocean, it was just as accurate to say that Eggman was in the Hedges' clutches as it was to say they were in his. Sighing, he gazed up at the tall mast of the boat, where a tattered sail drooped limply in the still air. For some time, Tails had been trying to invent a way for the boat to move even when there wasn't any wind, but the only mechanical materials on board were a pair of enormous spatulas from the Hotel Denouement's rooftop

sunbathing salon. The children had been using these spatulas as oars, but rowing a boat is very hard work, particularly if one's traveling companions are too busy bragging to help out, and Tails was trying to think of a way they might move the boat faster, Tails could fly, but he could see any land to fly too.

"I've burned down the Hotel Denouement," Eggman cried, gesturing dramatically, "and destroyed V.F.D. once and for all!"

"So you keep telling us," Amy muttered, without looking up from her commonplace book.

For quite some time, Amy had been writing down the details of the Hedges' situation in this dark blue notebook, including the fact that it was the Hedges, not Eggman, who had burned down the Hotel Denouement. V.F.D. was a secret organization that the Hedges had heard about during their travels, and as far as the middle Hedge knew it had not been destroyed–not quite–although quite a few V.F.D. agents had been in the hotel when it caught fire. At the moment, Amy was examining her notes on V.F.D. and the schism, which was an enormous fight involving all of its members and had something to do with a sugar bowl. The middle Hedge did not know what the sugar bowl contained, nor did she know the precise whereabouts of one of the organization's bravest agents, a woman named Vanilla Snicket. The children had met Kit only once before she headed out to sea herself, planning to meet up with the Quagmire triplets, three friends the Hedges had not seen in quite some time who were traveling in a self-sustaining hot air mobile home. Amy was hoping the notes in his commonplace book would help her figure out exactly where they might be, if she studied them long enough.

"And the Hedge fortune is finally mine!" Eggman cackled. "Finally, I am

a very wealthy man, which means everybody must do what I say!" "Beans," Sonic said. The youngest Hedge was no longer a baby, but he still talked in a somewhat unusual way, and by "beans" he meant something like, "Count Eggman is spouting pure nonsense," as the Hedge fortune was not to be found in the large, wooden boat, and so could not be said to belong to anyone. But when Sonic said "beans," he also meant "beans." One of the few things the children had found on board the boat was a large clay jar with a rubber seal, which had been wedged underneath one of the boat's wooden benches. The jar was quite dusty and looked very old, but the seal was intact, a word which here means "not broken, so the food stored inside was still edible." Sonic was grateful for the jar, as there was no other food to be found on board, but he couldn't help wishing that it had contained something other than plain white beans. It's possible to cook a number of delicious dishes with white beans–the Hedge parents used to make a cold salad of white beans, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil, all mixed together with lime juice, olive oil, and cayenne pepper, which was a delicious thing to eat on hot days but without any other ingredients, Sonic had only been able to serve his boat mates handfuls of a bland, white mush, enough to keep them alive, but certainly nothing in which a young chef like himself could take pride. As Count Eggman continued to brag, the youngest Hedge was peering into the jar, wondering how he could make something more interesting out of white beans and nothing else.

"I think the first thing I'll buy for myself is a shiny new car!" Count Eggman said. "Something with a powerful engine, so I can drive faster than the legal limit, and an extra-thick bumper, so I can ram into people without getting all scratched up! I'll name the car Count Eggman, after myself, and whenever people hear the squeal of brakes they'll say, 'Here comes

Count Eggman!' Orphans, head for the nearest luxury car dealership!" The Hedges looked at one another. As I'm sure you know, it's unlikely for a car dealership to be found in the middle of the ocean, although I have heard of a rickshaw salesman who does business in a

grotto hidden deep in the Caspian Sea. It's very tiresome to travel with someone who is constantly making demands, particularly if the demands are for utterly impossible things, and the children found that they could no longer hold their tongues, a phrase which here means "keep from confronting Eggman about his foolishness."

"We can't head for a car dealership," Tails said. "We can't head anywhere. The wind has died out, and Amy and I are exhausted from rowing."

"Laziness is no excuse," Eggman growled. "I'm exhausted from all my schemes, but you don't see me complaining."

"Furthermore," Amy said, "we have no idea where we are, and so we have no idea which direction to go in."

"I know where we are," Eggman sneered. "We're in the middle of the ocean."

"Beans," Sonic said.

"I've had enough of your tasteless mush!" Eggman snarled. "It's worse than that salad your parents used to make! All in all, you orphans are the worst henchmen I've ever acquired!"

"We're not your henchmen!" Tails cried. "We simply happen to be traveling together!"

"I think you're forgetting who the captain is around here," Count Eggman said, and knocked one dirty knuckle against the boat's figurehead. With his other hand, he twirled his harpoon gun, a terrible weapon that had one last sharp harpoon available for his treacherous use. "If you don't do what I say, I'll break open this helmet and you'll be doomed."

The Hedges looked at the figurehead in dismay. Inside the helmet were a few spores of the Medusoid Mycelium, a terrible fungus that could poison anyone who breathed it in. Sonic would have perished from the mushroom's deadly power not so long ago, had the Hedges not managed to find a helping of wasabi, a Japanese condiment that diluted the poison.

"You wouldn't dare release the Medusoid Mycelium," Amy said, hoping he sounded more certain than he felt. "You'd be poisoned as quickly as we would."

"Equivalent flotilla," Sonic said sternly to the villain.

"Our brother's right," Tails said. "We're in the same boat, Eggman. The wind has died down, we have no idea which way to go, and we're running low on nourishment. In fact, without a destination, a way of navigating, and some fresh water, we're likely to perish in a matter of days. You might try to help us, instead of ordering us around."

Count Eggman glared at the eldest Hedge, and then stalked to the far end of the boat. "You three figure out a way to get us out of here," he said, "and I'll work on changing the nameplate of the boat. I don't want my yacht called Sally anymore."

The Hedges peered over the edge of the boat, and noticed for the first time a nameplate attached to the rear of the boat with thick tape. On the nameplate, written in a messy scrawl, was the word "Sally," presumably referring to Sally Spats, a nasty young girl whom the Hedges had first encountered at a dreadful school they were forced to attend, and who later had been more or less adopted by Count Eggman and his girlfriend Eudora Squalor, whom the villain had abandoned at the hotel. Putting down the harpoon gun, Count Eggman began to pick at the tape with his dirt-encrusted fingernails,

peeling away at the nameplate to reveal another name underneath.

Although the Hedge orphans did not care about the name of the boat they now called home, they were grateful that the villain had found something to do with his time so they could spend a few minutes talking among themselves.

"What can we do?" Tails whispered to his siblings. "Do you think you can catch some fish for us to eat, Sonic?"

The youngest Hedge shook his head. "No bait," he said, "and no net. Deep-sea dive?"

"I don't think so," Amy said. "You shouldn't be swimming down there without the proper equipment. There are all sorts of sinister things you could encounter."

The Hedges shivered, thinking of something they had encountered while on board a submarine called the Queequeg. All the children had seen was a curvy shape on a radar screen that resembled a question mark, but the captain of the submarine had told them that it was something even worse than Eggman himself. "Amy is right," Tails said. "You shouldn't swim down there. Amy, is there anything in your notes that might lead us to the others?"

Amy shut her commonplace book and shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said. "Vanilla told us she was going to contact Captain Charmy Widdershins and meet him at a certain clump of seaweed, but even if we knew exactly which clump she meant, we wouldn't know how to get there without proper navigation equipment."

"I could probably make a compass," Tails said. "All I need is a small piece of magnetized metal and a simple pivot. But maybe we shouldn't join the other volunteers. After all, we've caused them a great deal of trouble."

"That's true," Amy admitted. "They might not be happy to see us,

particularly if we had Count Eggman along."

Sonic looked at the villain, who was still scraping away at the nameplate. "Unless," he said.

Tails and Amy shared a nervous glance. "Unless what?" Tails asked. Sonic was silent for a moment, and looked down at the concierge uniform he was still wearing from his time at the hotel. "Push Eggman overboard," he whispered.

The elder Hedges gasped, not just because of what Sonic had said but because they could easily picture the treacherous act Sonic had described. With Count Eggman overboard, the Hedges could sail someplace without the villain's interference, or his threats to release the Medusoid Mycelium. There would be one fewer person with whom to share the remaining beans, and if they ever reached Vanilla Snicket and the Quagmires they wouldn't have Eggman along. In uneasy silence they turned their gazes to the back of the boat, where Eggman was leaning over to peel off the nameplate. All three Hedges could imagine how simple it would be to push him, just hard enough for the villain to lose his balance and topple into the water.

"Eggman wouldn't hesitate to throw us overboard," Tails said, so quietly his siblings could scarcely hear him. "If he didn't need us to sail the boat, he'd toss us into the sea."

"V.F.D. might not hesitate, either," Amy said. "Parents?" Sonic asked.

The Hedges shared another uneasy glance. The children had recently

learned another mysterious fact about their parents and their shadowy past–a rumor concerning their parents and a box of poison darts. Tails, Amy, and Sonic, like all children, had always wanted to believe the best about their parents, but as time went on they were less and less

sure. They only recently found that their parents had done an un-noble thing, to Eggman's parents. What the siblings needed was a compass, but not the sort of compass Tails had mentioned. The eldest Hedge was talking about a navigational compass, which is a device that allows a person to tell you the proper direction to travel in the ocean. But the Hedges needed a moral compass, which is something inside a person, in the brain or perhaps in the heart, that tells you the proper thing to do in a given situation. A navigational compass, as any good inventor knows, is made from a small piece of magnetized metal and a simple pivot, but the ingredients in a moral compass are not as clear. Some believe that everyone is born with a moral compass already inside them, like an appendix, or a fear of worms. Others believe that a moral compass develops over time, as a person learns about the decisions of others by observing the world and reading books. In any case, a moral compass appears to be a delicate device, and as people grow older and venture out into the world, it often becomes more and more difficult to figure out which direction one's moral compass is pointing, so it's harder and harder to figure out the proper thing to do. When the Hedges first encountered Count Eggman, their moral compasses never would have told them to get rid of this terrible man, whether by pushing him out of his mysterious tower room or running him over with his long, black automobile. But now, standing on the Sally, the Hedge orphans were not sure what they should do with this villain who was leaning so far over the boat that one small push would have sent him to his watery grave.

But as it happened, Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not have to make this decision, because at that instant, as with so many instants in the Hedge lives, the decision was made for them, as Count Eggman straightened up and gave the children a triumphant grin. "I'm a genius!"

he announced. "I've solved all of our problems! Look!"

The villain gestured behind him with one thick thumb, and the Hedges peered over the edge of the boat and saw that the SALLY nameplate had been removed, revealing a nameplate reading COUNT EGGMAN, although this nameplate, too, was attached with tape, and it appeared that yet another nameplate was underneath this one. "Renaming the boat doesn't solve any of our problems," Tails said wearily.

"Tails is right," Amy said. "We still need a destination, a way of navigating, and some kind of nourishment."

"Unless," Sonic said, but Count Eggman interrupted the youngest Hedge with a sly chuckle.

"You three are really quite slow-witted," the villain said. "Look at the horizon, you fools, and see what is approaching! We don't need a destination or a way of navigating, because we'll go wherever it takes us! And we're about to get more fresh water than we could drink in a lifetime!"

The Hedges looked out at the sea, and saw what Eggman was talking about. Spilling across the sky, like ink staining a precious document, was an immense bank of black clouds. In the middle of the ocean, a fierce storm can arrive out of nowhere, and this storm promised to be very fierce indeed–much fiercer than Hurricane Herman, which had menaced the Hedges some time ago during a voyage across Lake Lachrymose that ended in tragedy. Already the children could see the thin, sharp lines of rain falling some distance away, and here and there the clouds flickered with furious lightning.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Count Eggman asked, his scraggly hair already fluttering in the approaching wind. Over the villain's nefarious chuckle the children

could hear the sound of approaching thunder. "A storm like this is the answer to all your whining."

"It might destroy the boat," Tails said, looking nervously up at the tattered sails. "A boat of this size is not designed to withstand a heavy storm."

"We have no idea where it will take us," Amy said. "We could end up even further from civilization."

"All overboard," Sonic said.

Count Eggman looked out at the horizon again, and smiled at the storm as if it were an old friend coming to visit. "Yes, those things might happen," he said with a wicked smile. "But what are you going to do about it, orphans?"

The Hedges followed the villain's gaze to the storm. It was difficult to believe that just moments ago the horizon had been empty, and now this great black mass of rain and wind was staining the sky as it drew closer and closer. Tails, Amy, and Sonic could do nothing about it. An inventing mind, the notes of a researcher, and surprisingly adept cooking skills were no match for what was coming. The storm clouds unfurled wider and wider, like the layers of an onion unpeeling, or a sinister secret becoming more and more mysterious. Whatever their moral compass told them about the proper thing to do, the Hedge orphans knew there was only one choice in this situation, and that was to do nothing as the storm engulfed the children and the villain as they stood together in the same boat.

R

 **Two**

It's useless for me to describe to you how terrible Tails, Amy, and even Sonic felt in the hours that followed. Most people who have survived a storm at sea are so shaken by the experience that they never want to speak of it again, and so if a writer wishes to describe a storm at sea, his only method of research is to stand on a large, wooden boat with a notebook and pen, ready to take notes should a storm suddenly strike. But I have already stood on a large, wooden boat with a notebook and pen, ready to take notes should a storm suddenly strike, and by the time the storm cleared I was so shaken

by the experience that I never wanted to speak of it again. So it's useless for me to describe the force of the wind that tore through the sails as if they were paper, and sent the boat spinning like an ice-skater showing off. It's impossible for me to convey the volume of rain that fell, drenching the Hedges in freezing water so their concierge uniforms clung to them like an extra layer of soaked and icy skin. It's futile for me to portray the streaks of lightning that clattered down from the swirling clouds, striking the mast of the boat and sending it toppling into the churning sea. It's inadequate for me to report on the deafening thunder that rang in the Hedges' ears, and it's superfluous for me to recount how the boat began to tilt back and forth, sending all of its contents tumbling into the ocean: first the jar of beans, hitting the surface of the water with a loud glop!, and then the spatulas, the lightning reflecting off their mirrored surfaces as they disappeared into the swirling tides, and lastly the sheets Tails had taken from the hotel laundry room and fashioned into a drag chute so the boat would survive

its drop from the rooftop sunbathing salon, billowing in the stormy air like jellyfish before sinking into the sea. It's worthless for me to specify the increasing size of the waves rising out of water, first like shark fins, and then like tents, and then finally like glaciers, their icy peaks climbing higher and higher until they finally came crashing down on the soaked and crippled boat with an unearthly roar like the laughter of some terrible beast. It's bootless for me to render an account of the Hedge orphans clinging to one another in fear and desperation, certain that at any moment they would be dragged away and tossed to their watery graves, while Count Eggman clung to the harpoon gun and the wooden figurehead, as if a terrible weapon and a deadly fungus were the only things he loved in the world, and it's of no earthly use to provide a report on the front of the figurehead detaching from the boat with a

deafening crackle, sending the Hedges spinning in one direction and Eggman spinning in the other, or the sudden jolt as the rest of the boat abruptly stopped spinning, and a horrible scraping sound came from beneath the shuddering wood floor of the craft, as if a gigantic hand were grabbing the remains of the Count Eggman from below, and holding the trembling siblings in its strong and steady grip. Certainly the Hedges did not find it necessary to wonder what had happened now, after all those terrible, whirling hours in the heart of the storm, but simply crawled together to a far corner of the boat, and huddled against one another, too stunned to cry, as they listened to the sea rage around them, and heard the frantic cries of Count Eggman, wondering if he were being torn limb from limb by the furious storm, or if he, too, had found some strange safety, and not knowing which fate they wished upon the man who had flung so much misfortune on the three of them. There is no

need for me to describe this storm, as it would only be another layer of this unfortunate onion of a story, and in any case by the time the sun rose the next morning, the swirling black clouds were already scurrying away from the bedraggled Hedges, and the air was silent and still, as if the whole evening had only been a ghastly nightmare.

The children stood up unsteadily in their piece of the boat, their limbs aching from clinging to one another all night, and tried to figure out where in the world they were, and how in the world they had survived. But as they gazed around at their surroundings, they could not answer these questions, as they had never seen anything in the world like the sight that awaited them.

At first, it appeared that the Hedge orphans were still in the middle of the ocean, as all the children could see was a flat and wet landscape stretching out in all directions, fading into the gray morning mist. But as they peered over the side of their ruined boat, the children

saw that the water was not much deeper than a puddle, and this enormous puddle was littered with detritus, a word which here means "all sorts of strange items." There were large pieces of wood sticking out of the water like jagged teeth, and long lengths of rope tangled into damp and complicated knots. There were great heaps of seaweed, and thousands of fish wriggling and gaping at the sun as seabirds swooped down from the misty sky and helped themselves to a seafood breakfast. There were what looked like pieces of other boats–anchors and portholes, railings and masts, scattered every which way like broken toys–and other objects that might have been from the boats' cargo, including shattered lanterns, smashed barrels, soaked documents, and the ripped remains of all sorts of clothing, from top hats to roller skates.

There was an old-fashioned typewriter leaning against a large, ornate bird cage, with a family of guppies wriggling through its keys. There was a large, brass cannon, with a large crab clawing its way out of the barrel, and there was a hopelessly torn net caught in the blades of a propeller.

It was as if the storm had swept away the entire sea, leaving all of its contents scattered on the ocean floor.

"What is this place?" Tails said, in a hushed whisper. "What happened?" Amy took her glasses out of her pocket, where she had put them for safekeeping, and was relieved to see they were unharmed. "I think we're on a coastal shelf," she said. "There are places in the sea where the water is suddenly very shallow, usually near land. The storm must have thrown our boat onto the shelf, along with all this other wreckage."

"Land?" Sonic asked, holding his tiny hand over her eyes so he might see farther. "Don't see."

Amy stepped carefully over the side of the boat. The dark water only came up to her knees, and she began to walk around the boat in careful strides. "Coastal shelves are usually much

smaller than this," she said, "but there must be an island somewhere close by. Let's look for it."

Tails followed his sister out of the boat, carrying his brother, who was still quite short. "Which direction do you think we should go?" he asked. "We don't want to get lost."

Sonic gave his siblings a small smile. "Already lost," he pointed out. "Sonic's right," Amy said. "Even if we had a compass, we don't know where we are or where we are going. We might as well head in any direction at all."

"Then I vote we head west," Tails said, pointing in the opposite direction

of the rising sun. "If we're going to be walking for a while, we don't want the sun in our eyes."

"Unless we find our concierge sunglasses," Amy said. "The storm blew them away, but they might have landed on the same shelf."

"We could find anything here," Tails said, and the Hedges had walked only a few steps before they saw this was so, for floating in the water was one piece of detritus they wished had blown away from them forever. Floating in a particularly filthy part of the water, stretched out flat on his back with his harpoon gun leaning across one shoulder, was Count Eggman. The villain's eyes were closed underneath his one eyebrow, and he did not move. In all their miserable times with the count, the Hedges had never seen Eggman look so calm.

"I guess we didn't need to throw him overboard," Tails said. "The storm did it for us."

Amy leaned down to peer closer to Eggman, but the villain still did not stir. "It must have been terrible," he said, "to try and ride out the storm with no kind of shelter whatsoever."

"Kikbucit?" Sonic asked, but at that moment Count Eggman's eyes opened and the youngest Hedge's question was answered. Frowning, the villain moved his eyes in one direction and then the other.

"Where am I?" he muttered, spitting a piece of seaweed out of his mouth. "Where's my figurehead?"

"Coastal shelf," Sonic replied.

At the sound of Sonic's voice, Count Eggman blinked and sat up, glaring at the children and shaking water out of his ears. "Get me some coffee, orphans!" he ordered. "I had a very unpleasant evening, and I'd like a nice, hearty breakfast before deciding what to do with you."

"There's no coffee here," Tails said, although there was in fact an

espresso machine about twenty feet away. "We're walking west, in the hopes of finding an island."

"You'll walk where I tell you to walk," Eggman growled. "Are you forgetting that I'm the captain of this boat?"

"The boat is stuck in the sand," Amy said. "It's quite damaged."

"Well, you're still my henchpeople," the villain said, "and my orders are that we walk west, in the hopes of finding an island. I've heard about islands in the distant parts of the sea. The primitive inhabitants have never seen civilized people, so they will probably revere me as a god." The Hedges looked at one another and sighed. "'Revere" is a word which here means "praise highly, and have a great deal of respect for," and there was no person the children revered less than the dreadful man who was standing before them, picking his teeth with a bit of seashell and referring to people who lived in a certain region of the world as "primitive." Yet it seemed that no matter where the Hedges traveled, there were people either so greedy that they respected and praised Eggman for his evil ways, or so foolish that they didn't notice how dreadful he really was. It was enough to make the children want to abandon Eggman there on the coastal shelf, but it's difficult to abandon someone in a place where everything is already abandoned, and so the three orphans

and the one villain trudged together westward across the cluttered coastal shelf in silence, wondering what was in store for them. Count Eggman led the way, balancing the harpoon gun on one shoulder, and interrupting the silence every so often to demand coffee, fresh juice, and other equally unobtainable breakfast items. Tails walked behind him, using a broken banister he found as a walking stick and poking at interesting mechanical scraps he found in the muck, and Amy walked

alongside her brother, jotting the occasional note in her commonplace book. Sonic climbed on top of Tails' shoulders to serve as a sort of lookout, and it was the youngest Hedge who broke the silence with a triumphant cry.

"Land ho!" he cried, pointing into the mist, and the three Hedges could see the faint shape of an island rising out of the shelf. The island looked narrow and long, like a freight train, and if they squinted they could see clusters of trees and what looked like enormous sheets of white cloth billowing in the wind.

"I've discovered an island!" Count Eggman cackled. "I'm going to name it Eggman-Land!"

"You didn't discover the island," Tails pointed out. "It appears that people already live on it."

"And I am their king!" Count Eggman proclaimed. "Hurry up, orphans! My royal subjects are going to cook me a big breakfast, and if I'm in a good mood I might let you lick the plates!"

The Hedges had no intention of licking the plates of Eggman or anyone else, but nevertheless they continued walking toward the island, maneuvering around the wreckage that still littered the surface of the shelf. They had just walked around a grand piano, which was sticking straight out of the water as if it had fallen from the sky, when something caught the Hedge eyes–a tiny white figure, scurrying toward them. "What?" Sonic asked. "Who?"

"It might be another survivor of the storm,"

Amy said. "Our boat couldn't have been the only one in this area of the ocean."

"Do you think the storm reached Vanilla Snicket?" Tails asked.

"Or the triplets?" Sonic said.

Count Eggman scowled, and put one muddy finger on the trigger of the harpoon gun. "If that's Vanilla Snicket or some bratty orphan," he said, "I'll harpoon her right where she stands. No ridiculous volunteer is going to take my island away from me!"

"You don't want to waste your last harpoon," Tails said, thinking quickly. "Who knows where you'll find another one?"

"That's true," Eggman admitted. "You're becoming an excellent henchman."

"Poppycock," growled Sonic, baring her teeth at the count.

"My brother's right," Amy said. "It's ridiculous to argue about volunteers and henchpeople when we're standing on a coastal shelf in the middle of the ocean."

"Don't be so sure, orphan," Eggman replied. "No matter where we are, there's always room for someone like me." He leaned down close to give Amy a sneaky smile, as if he were telling a joke. "Haven't you learned that by now?"

It was an unpleasant question, but the Hedges did not have time to answer it, as the figure drew closer and closer until the children could see it was a young girl, a seederling, perhaps six or seven years old. She was barefoot, and dressed in a simple, white robe that was so clean she could not have been in the storm. Hanging from the girl's belt was a large white seashell, and she was wearing a pair of sunglasses that looked very much like the ones the Hedges had worn as concierges. She was grinning from ear to ear, but when she reached the Hedges, panting from her long run, she suddenly looked shy, and although the Hedges were quite curious as to who she was, they also found themselves keeping silent. Even Eggman did not speak, and merely admired

his reflection in the water.

When you find yourself tongue-tied in front of someone you do not know, you might want to remember something the Hedges' mother told them long ago, and something she told me even longer ago. I can see her now, sitting on a small couch she used to keep in the corner of her bedroom, adjusting the straps of her sandals with one hand and munching on an apple with the other, telling me not to worry about the party that was beginning downstairs. "People love to talk about themselves, Mr. Snicket," she said to me, between bites of apple. "If you find yourself wondering what to say to any of the guests, ask them which secret code they prefer, or find out whom they've been spying on lately." Tails, too, could almost hear his mother's voice as she gazed down at this young girl, and decided to ask her something about herself.

"What's your name?" Tails asked.

The girl fiddled with her seashell, and then

looked up at the eldest Hedge. "Friday," she said. "but people call me Cosmo."

"Do you live on the island, Cosmo?" Tails asked.

"Yes," the girl said. "I got up early this morning to go storm scavenging." "Storm scavawha?" Sonic asked, from Tails' shoulders.

"Every time there's a storm, everyone in the colony gathers everything that's collected on the coastal shelf," Cosmo said. "One never knows when one of these items will come in handy. Are you castaways?"

"I guess we are," Tails said. "We were traveling by boat when we got caught in the storm. I'm Tails Hedge, and this is my brother, Amy, and my sister, Sonic." She turned reluctantly to Eggman, who was glaring at Cosmo suspiciously. "And this is–"

"I am your king!" Eggman announced in a grand voice. "Bow before me,

Cosmo!"

"No, thank you," Cosmo said politely. "Our colony is not a monarchy. You must be exhausted from the storm, Hedges. It looked so enormous from shore that we didn't think there'd be any castaways this time. Why don't you come with me, and you can have something to eat?"

"We'd be most grateful," Amy said. "Do castaways arrive on this island very often?"

"From time to time," Cosmo said, with a small shrug. "It seems that everything eventually washes up on our shores."

"The shores of Eggman-Land, you mean," Count Eggman growled. "I discovered the island, so I get to name it."

Cosmo peered at Eggman curiously from behind her sunglasses. "You must be confused, sir, after your journey through the storm," she said. "People have lived on the island for many, many years."

"Primitive people," sneered the villain. "I don't even see any houses on the island."

"We live in tents," Cosmo said, pointing at the billowing white cloths on the island. "We grew tired of building houses that would only get blown away during the stormy season, and the rest of the time the weather is so hot that we appreciate the ventilation that a tent provides."

"I still say you're primitive," Eggman insisted, "and I don't listen to primitive people."

"I won't force you," Cosmo said. "Come along with me and you can decide for yourself."

"I'm not going to come along with you," Count Eggman said, "and neither are my henchpeople! I'm Count Eggman, and I'm in charge around here, not some little idiot in a robe!"

"There's no reason to be insulting," Cosmo said. "The island is the only

place you can go, Count Eggman, so it really doesn't matter who's in charge." Count Eggman gave Cosmo a terrible scowl, and he pointed his harpoon gun straight at the young girl. "If you don't bow before me, Cosmo, I'll fire this harpoon gun at you!"

The Hedges gasped, but Cosmo merely frowned at the villain. "In a few minutes," she said, "all the inhabitants of the island will be out storm scavenging. They'll see any act of violence you commit, and you won't be allowed on the island. Please point that weapon away from me." Count Eggman opened his mouth as if to say something, but after a moment he shut it again, and lowered the harpoon gun sheepishly, a word which here means "looking quite embarrassed to be following the orders of a young girl."

"Hedges, please come with me," Cosmo said, and began to lead the way toward the distant island.

"What about me?" Count Eggman asked. His voice was a little squeaky, and it reminded the Hedges of other voices they had heard, from people who were frightened of Eggman himself. They had heard this voice from guardians of theirs, and from Mr. Silver Poe when the villain would confront him. It was a tone of voice they had heard from various volunteers when discussing Eggman's activities, and even from his henchmen when they complained about their wicked boss. It was a tone of voice the Hedges had heard from themselves, during the countless times the dreadful man had threatened them, and promised to get his hands on their fortune, but the children never thought they would hear it from Count Eggman himself. "What about me?" he asked again, but the siblings had already followed Cosmo a short way from where he was standing, and when the Hedge orphans turned to him, Eggman looked like just another piece of detritus that the storm had blown onto the coastal shelf.

"Go away," Cosmo said firmly, and the castaways wondered if finally they had found a place where there was no room for Count Eggman.

Three

As I'm sure you know, there are many words in our mysterious and confusing language that can mean two completely different things. The word "bear," for instance, can refer to a rather husky mammal found in the woods, as in the sentence "The bear moved quietly toward the camp counselor, who was too busy putting on lipstick to notice," but it can also refer to how much someone can handle, as in the sentence "The loss of my camp counselor is more than I can bear." The word "yarn" can refer both to a colorful strand of wool, as in the sentence "His sweater was made of yarn," and to a long and rambling story, as in the sentence "His yarn about how he lost his sweater almost put me to sleep." The word "hard" can refer both to something that is difficult and something that is firm to the touch, and unless you come across a sentence like "The bears bear hard hard yarn yarns" you are unlikely to be confused. But as the Hedge orphans followed Cosmo across the coastal shelf toward the island where she lived, they experienced both definitions of the word "cordial," which can refer both to a person who is friendly and to a drink that is sweet, and the more they had of one the more they were confused about the other.

"Perhaps you would care for some coconut cordial," Cosmo said, in a cordial tone of voice, and she reached down to the seashell that hung around her neck. With one slim finger she plucked out a stopper, and the children could see that the shell had been fashioned into a sort of canteen. "You must be thirsty from your journey through the storm." "We are thirsty," Tails admitted, "but isn't fresh water better for thirst?"

"There's no fresh water on the island," Cosmo said. "There's some saltwater falls that we use for washing, and a saltwater pool that's perfect for swimming. But all we drink is coconut cordial. We drain the milk from coconuts and allow it to ferment."

"Ferment?" Sonic asked.

"Cosmo means that the coconut milk sits around for some time, and undergoes a chemical process making it sweeter and stronger," Amy explained, having learned about fermentation in a book about a vineyard his parents had kept in the Hedge library.

"The sweetness will wash away the taste of the storm," Cosmo said, and passed the seashell to the three children. One by one they each took a sip of the cordial. As Cosmo had said, the cordial was quite sweet, but there was another taste beyond the sweetness, something odd and strong that made them a bit dizzy. Tails and Amy both winced as the cordial slipped thickly down their throats, and Sonic coughed as soon as the first drop reached his tongue.

"It's a little strong for us, Cosmo," Tails said, handing the seashell back to Cosmo.

"You'll get used to it," Cosmo said with a smile, "when you drink it at every meal. That's one of the customs here."

"I see," Amy said, making a note in her commonplace book. "What other customs do you have here?"

"Not too many," Cosmo said, looking first at Amy's notebook and then around her, where the Hedges could see the distant figures of other islanders, all dressed in white, walking around the costal shelf and poking at the wreckage they found. "Every time there's a storm, we

for storm scavenging and present what we've found to a man named Mighty. Mighty has been on this island longer than any of us, and he

injured his feet some time ago and keeps them covered in island clay, which has healing powers. Mighty can't even stand, but he serves as the island's facilitator."

"Demarc?" Sonic asked Amy.

"A facilitator is someone who helps other people make decisions," the middle Hedge explained.

Cosmo nodded in agreement. "Mighty decides what detritus might be of use to us, and what the sheep should drag away."

"There are sheep on the island?" Tails asked.

"A herd of wild sheep washed up on our shores many, many years ago," Cosmo said, "and they roam free, except when they're needed to drag our scavenged items to the arboretum, on the far side of the island over that brae over there."

"Brae?" Sonic asked.

"A brae is a steep hill," Amy said, "and an arboretum is a place where trees grow."

"All that grows in the island's arboretum is one enormous apple tree," Cosmo said, "or at least, that's what I've heard."

"You've never been to the far side of the island?" Tails asked.

"No one goes to the far side of the island," Cosmo said. "Mighty says it's too dangerous with all the items the sheep have brought there. Nobody even picks the bitter apples from the tree, except on Decision Day." "Holiday?" Sonic asked.

"I guess it's something of a holiday," Cosmo said. "Once a year, the tides turn in this part of the ocean, and the coastal shelf is completely covered in water. It's the one time a year that it's deep enough to sail away from the island. All year long we build an enormous outrigger, which is a type of canoe, and the day the tides turn we have a feast and a talent show. Then anyone who wishes to leave our colony indicates their decision by

taking a bite of bitter apple and spitting it onto the ground before boarding the outrigger and bidding us farewell."

"Yuck," the youngest Hedge said, imagining a crowd of people spitting up apple.

"There's nothing yucky about it," Cosmo said with a frown. "It's the colony's most important custom."

"I'm sure it's wonderful," Tails said, reminding his brother with a stern glance that it's not polite to insult the customs of others.

"It's," Cosmo said. "Of course, people rarely leave this island. No one has left since before I was born, so each year we simply light the outrigger on fire, and push it out to sea. Watching a burning outrigger slowly vanish on the horizon is a beautiful sight."

"It sounds beautiful," Amy said, although the middle Hedge thought it sounded more creepy than beautiful, "but it seems a waste to build a canoe every year only to burn it up."

"It gives us something to do," Cosmo said with a shrug. "Besides building the outrigger, there's not much to occupy us on the island. We catch fish, and cook meals, and do the laundry, but that still leaves much of the day unoccupied."

"Cook?" Sonic asked eagerly.

"My brother is something of a chef," Amy said. "I'm sure he'd be happy to help with the cooking."

Cosmo smiled, and put her hands in the deep pockets of her robe. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Are you sure you don't want another sip of cordial?"

All three Hedges shook their heads. "No, thank you," Tails said, "but it's kind of you to offer."

"Mighty says that everyone should be treated with kindness," Cosmo said, "unless they are unkind themselves. That's why I left that horrible

man Count Eggman behind. Were you traveling with him?"

The Hedges looked at one another, unsure of how to answer this question. On one hand, Cosmo seemed very cordial, but like the cordial she offered, there was something else besides sweetness in her description of the island. The colony's customs sounded very strict, and although the siblings were relieved to be out of Count Eggman's company, there seemed something cruel about abandoning Eggman on the coastal shelf, even though he certainly would have done the same to the orphans if he'd had the opportunity. Tails, Amy, and Sonic were not sure how Cosmo would react if they admitted being in the villain's company, and they did not reply for a moment, until the middle Hedge remembered an expression he had read in a novel about people who were very, very polite.

"It depends on how you look at it," Amy said, using a phrase which sounds like an answer but scarcely means anything at all. Cosmo gave her a curious look, but the children had reached the end of the coastal shelf and were standing at the edge of the island. It was a sloping beach with sand so white that Cosmo's white robe looked almost invisible, and at the top of the slope was an outrigger, fashioned from wild grasses and the limbs of trees, which looked nearly finished, as if Decision Day was arriving soon. Past the outrigger was an enormous white tent, as long as a school bus. The Hedges followed Cosmo inside the tent, and found to their surprise that it was filled with sheep, who all lay dozing on the ground. The sheep appeared to be tied together with thick, frayed rope, and towering over the sheep was an old armadillo smiling at the Hedges through a beard as thick and wild as the sheep's woolly coats. He sat in an enormous chair

that looked as if it were fashioned out of white clay, and two more piles of clay rose up where his feet should have been. He was wearing a robe like Cosmo's and had a similar seashell hanging from his belt, and his voice was as cordial as Cosmo's as he smiled down at the three siblings. "What have we here?" he said.

"I found three castaways on the coastal shelf," Cosmo said proudly.

"Welcome, castaways," Mighty said. "Forgive me for remaining seated, but my feet are quite sore today, so I'm making use of our healing clay. It's very nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you, Mighty," said Tails, who thought healing clay was of dubious scientific efficacy, a phrase which here means "unlikely to heal sore feet."

"Call me Might," said Mighty , leaning down to scratch the heads of one of the sheep. "And what shall I call you?"

"Tails, Amy, and Sonic Hedge," Cosmo chimed in, before the siblings could introduce themselves.

"Hedge?" Mighty repeated, and raised his eyebrows. He gazed at the three children in silence as he took a long sip of cordial from his seashell, and for just one moment his smile seemed to disappear. But then he gazed down at the siblings and grinned heartily. "We haven't had new islanders in quite some time. You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like, unless you're unkind, of course."

"Thank you," Amy said, as kindly as he could. "Cosmo has told us a few things about the island. It sounds quite interesting."

"It depends on how you look at it," Mighty said. "Even if you want to leave, you'll only have the opportunity once a year. In the meantime, Cosmo, why don't you show them to a tent, so they can change their

clothes? We should have some new woolen robes that fit you nicely." "We would appreciate that," Tails said. "Our concierge uniforms are quite soaked from the storm."

"I'm sure they are," Mighty said, twisting a strand of beard in his fingers. "Besides, our custom is to wear nothing but white, to match the sand of the islands, the healing clay of the pool, and the wool of the wild sheep. Cosmo, I'm surprised you are choosing to break with tradition." Cosmo blushed, and her hand rose to the sunglasses she was wearing. "I found these in the wreckage," she said. "The sun is so bright on the island, I thought they might come in handy."

"I won't force you," Mighty said calmly, "but it seems to me you might prefer to dress according to custom, rather than showing off your new eyewear."

"You're right, Mighty ," Cosmo said quietly, and removed her sunglasses with one hand while the other hand darted into one of her robe's deep pockets.

"That's better," Mighty said, and smiled at the Hedges. "I hope you will enjoy living on this island," he said. "We're all castaways here, from one storm or another, and rather than trying to return to the world, we've built a colony safe from the world's treachery."

"There was a treacherous person with them," Cosmo piped up eagerly. "His name was Count Eggman, but he was so nasty that I didn't let him come with us."

"Eggman?" Mighty said, and his eyebrows raised again. "Is this man a friend of yours?"

"Fat chance," Sonic said.

"No, he isn't," Tails translated quickly. "To tell you the truth, we've been trying to escape from Count Eggman for quite some time."

"He's a dreadful man," Amy said.

"Same boat," Sonic said.

"Hmmm," Mighty said thoughtfully. "Is that the whole story, Hedges?"

The children looked at one another. Of course, the few sentences they'd uttered were not the whole story. There was much, much more to the story of the Hedges and Count Eggman, and if the children had recited all of it Mighty probably would have wept until the tears melted away the clay so his feet were bare and he had nothing to sit on. The Hedges could have told the island's facilitator about all of Count Eggman's schemes, from his vicious murder of Uncle Knuckles to his betrayal of Madame Lulu at the Caligari Carnival. They could have told him about his disguises, from his false peg leg when he was pretending to be Captain Sham, to his running shoes and turban when he was calling himself Coach Genghis. They could have told Mighty about Eggman's many comrades, from his girlfriend Eudora Squalor to the two white-faced women who had disappeared in the Mortmain Mountains, and they could have told Mighty about all of the unsolved mysteries that still kept the Hedges awake at night, from the disappearance of Captain Charmy Widdershins from an underwater cavern to the strange taxi driver who had approached the children outside the Hotel Denouement, and of course they could have told Mighty about that ghastly day at Briny Beach, when they first heard the news of their parents' deaths. But if the Hedges had told Mighty the whole story, they would have had to tell the parts that put the Hedges in an unfavorable light, a phrase which here means "the things the Hedges had done that were perhaps as treacherous as Eggman." They would have talked about their own schemes, from digging a pit to trap Eudora to starting the fire that destroyed the Hotel Denouement. They would have

mentioned their own disguises, from Sonic pretending to be Chabo the Wolf Baby to Tails and Amy pretending to be Snow Scouts, and their own comrades, from Justice Tikal Strauss, who turned out to be more useful than they had first thought, to Fiona, who turned out to be more treacherous than they had imagined. If the Hedge orphans had told Mighty the whole story, they might have looked as villainous as Count Eggman. The Hedges did not want to find themselves back on the coastal shelf, with all the detritus of the storm. They wanted to be safe from treachery and harm, even if the customs of the island colony were not exactly to their liking, and so, rather than telling Mighty the whole story, the Hedges merely nodded, and said the safest thing they could think of.

"It depends on how you look at it," Tails said, and her siblings nodded in agreement.

"Very well," Mighty said. "Run along and find your robes, and once you've changed, please give all of your old things to Cosmo and we'll haul them off to the arboretum."

"Everything?" Amy said.

Mighty nodded. "That's our custom. But you are allowed to keep your shoes"

"OcculaAmy?" Sonic asked, and her siblings quickly explained that she meant something like, "What about Amy's glasses?"

"She can scarcely read without them," Tails added.

Mighty raised his eyebrows again. "Well, there's no library here," he said quickly, with a nervous glance at Cosmo, "but I suppose your eyeglasses are of some use, same for you Tails. Now, hurry along, Hedges, unless you'd like a sip of cordial before you go."

"No, thank you," Amy said, wondering how many times he and his siblings would be offered this strange, sweet beverage. "My siblings and I tried some, and didn't care much for the taste."

"I won't force you," Mighty said again, "but your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time. See you soon, Hedges."

He gave them a small wave, and the Hedges waved back as Cosmo led them out of the tent and farther uphill where more tents were fluttering in the morning breeze.

"Choose any tent you like," Cosmo said. "We all switch tents each day–except for Mighty, because of his feet."

"Isn't it confusing to sleep in a different place each night?" Tails asked. "It depends on how you look at it," Cosmo said, taking a sip from her seashell. "I've never slept any other way."

"Have you lived your whole life on this island?" Amy said.

"Yes," Cosmo said. "My mother and father took an ocean cruise while she was pregnant, and ran into a terrible storm. My father was devoured by a manatee, and my mother was washed ashore when she was pregnant with me. You'll meet her soon. Now please hurry up and change." "Prompt," Sonic assured her, and Cosmo took her hand out of her pocket and shook Sonic's. The Hedges walked into the nearest tent, where a pile of robes lay folded in one corner. In moments, they changed into their new clothes, happy to discard their concierge uniforms, which were soaked and salty from the night's storm. When they were finished, however, they stood and stared for a moment at the pile of damp clothing. The Hedges felt strange to don the garments of shibboleth, a phrase which here means "wear the warm and somewhat unflattering clothing that was customary to people they hardly knew." It felt as if the three siblings were casting away everything that had happened to them prior to their arrival on the island. Their clothing, of course, was not the Hedges' whole story, as clothing is never anyone's whole story, except perhaps in the case of Eudora Squalor, whose villainous and

fashionable clothing revealed just how villainous and fashionable she was. But the Hedges could not help but feel that they were abandoning their previous lives, in favor of new lives on an island of strange customs.

"I won't throw away this ribbon," Tails said, winding the slender piece of cloth through his fingertips. "I'm still going to invent things, no matter what Mighty says."

"I'm not throwing away my commonplace book," Amy said, holding the dark blue notebook. "I'll still research things, even if there's no library here."

"No throw this," Sonic said, and held up a small metal implement so his siblings could see. One end was a small, simple handle, perfect for Sonic's petite hands, and the other end branched into several sturdy wires that were meshed together like a small shrubbery.

"What is that?" Tails asked.

"Whisk," Sonic said, and she was exactly right. A whisk is a kitchen tool used to mix ingredients together rapidly, and the youngest Hedge was happy to have such a useful item in her possession.

"Yes," Amy said. "I remember our father used to use it when he prepared scrambled eggs. But where did it come from?"

"Gal Cosmo," Sonic said.

"She knows Sonic can cook," Tails said, "but she must have thought Mighty would make her throw the whisk away."

"I guess she's not so eager to follow all of the colony's customs," Amy said.

"Guesso," Sonic agreed, and put the whisk in one of his robe's deep pockets. Amy did the same with her commonplace book, and Tails did the same with his ribbon, and the three of them stood together for a moment, sharing their pocketed secrets. It felt strange to be keeping

secrets from people who had taken them in so kindly, just as it felt strange not to tell Mighty their whole story. The secrets of the ribbon, the commonplace book, and the whisk felt submerged, a word for "hidden" that usually applies to things underwater, such as a submarine submerged in the sea, or a boat's figurehead submerged in a coastal shelf, and with each step the Hedges took out of the tent, they felt their submerged secrets bumping up against them from within the pockets of their robes.

The word "ferment," like the words "bear," "yarn," and "hard," can mean two completely different things. One meaning is the chemical process by which the juice of certain fruits becomes sweeter and stronger, as Amy explained to her siblings on the coastal shelf. But the other meaning of "ferment" refers to something building inside someone, like a secret that may be eventually found out, or a scheme that someone has been planning for quite some time. As the three Hedges exited the tent, and handed the detritus of their previous lives to Cosmo, they felt their own secrets fermenting inside them, and wondered what other secrets and schemes lay undiscovered. The Hedge orphans followed Cosmo back down the sloping beach, and wondered what else was fermenting on this strange island that was their new home.

Four

By the time the Hedge orphans returned to Mighty 's tent, the joint was hopping, a phrase which here means "full of islanders in white robes, all holding items they had scavenged from the coastal shelf." The sheep were no longer napping but standing stiffly in two long lines, and the ropes tying them together led to a large wooden sleigh–an unusual form transportation in such warm weather. Cosmo led the children through the colonists and sheep, who stepped aside and looked curiously at the three new castaways. Although this was the first time that the Hedges were castaways, they were accustomed to being strangers in a community, from their days at Prufrock Preparatory School to their time spent in the Village of Fowl Devotees, but they still did not enjoy being stared at. But it's one of the strange truths of life that practically nobody likes to be stared at and that practically nobody can stop themselves from staring, and as the three children made their way toward Mighty , who was still sitting on his enormous clay chair, the Hedges could not help looking back at the islanders with the same curiosity, wondering how so many people could become castaways on the same island. It was as if the world was full of people with lives as unfortunate as that of the Hedges, all ending up in the very same place.

Cosmo led the Hedges to the base of Mighty 's chair, and the facilitator smiled down at the children as they sat at his clay-covered feet. "Those white robes look very handsome on you Hedges," he

said. "Much better than those uniforms you were wearing earlier. You're going to be wonderful colonists, I am sure of it."

"Pyrrhonic?" Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "How can you be sure of such a thing based on our clothing?" But rather than translate, Tails remembered that the colony valued kindness and decided to say something kind.

"I can't tell you how much we appreciate this," Tails said, careful not to lean against the mounds of clay that hid Mighty 's toes. "We didn't know what would happen to us after the storm, and we're grateful to you, Mighty, for taking us in."

"Everyone is taken in here," Mighty said, apparently forgetting that Count Eggman had been abandoned. "And please, Call me Might. Would you like some cordial?"

"No, thank you," said Amy, who could not bring himself to call the facilitator by his nickname. "We'd like to meet the other colonists, if that's all right."

"Of course," Mighty said, and clapped his hands for attention. "Islanders!" he cried. "As I'm sure you've noticed, we have three new castaways with us today–Tails, Amy, and Sonic, the only survivors of that terrible storm. I'm not going to force you, but as you bring up your storm scavenging items for my suggestions, why don't you introduce yourselves to our new colonists?"

"Good idea, Mighty," said someone from the back of the tent.

"Call me Might," said Mighty , stroking his beard. "Now then, who's first?"

"I suppose I am," said a pleasant-looking flying squirrel who was holding what looked like a large, metal flower. "It's nice to meet you three. My name is Ray, and I've found the propeller of an airplane. The poor pilot must have flown straight into the storm."

"What a shame," Mighty said. "Well, there's no airplane to be found on

the island, so I don't think a propeller will be of much use."

"Excuse me," Tails said hesitantly, "but I know something about

mechanical devices. If we rigged the propeller up to a simple handpowered motor, we'd have a perfect fan for keeping cool on particularly hot days."

There was a murmur of appreciation from the crowd, and Ray smiled at Tails. "It does get mighty hot around here," he said. "That's a good idea."

Mighty took a sip of cordial from his seashell, and then frowned at the propeller. "It depends on how you look at it," he said. "If we only made one fan, then we'd all be arguing over who got to stand in front of it." "We could take turns," Ray said.

"Whose turn will it be on the hottest day of the year?" Mighty countered, a word which here means "said in a firm and sensible tone of voice, even though it was not necessarily a sensible thing to say." "I'm not going to force you, Ray, but I don't think building a fan is worth all the fuss it might cause."

"I suppose you're right," Ray said, with a shrug, and put the propeller on the wooden sleigh. "The sheep can take it to the arboretum."

"An excellent decision," Mighty said, as a fox girl perhaps one or two years older than Tails stepped forward.

"I'm Li Moon," she said, "and I found this in a particularly shallow part of the shelf. I think it's a dagger."

"A dagger?" Mighty said. "You know we don't welcome weapons on the island."

Amy was peering at the item Li Moon was holding, which was made of carved wood rather than metal. "I don't think that's a dagger," Amy said. "I believe it's an old tool used for cutting the pages of books.

Nowadays most books are sold with their pages already separated, but

some years ago each page was attached to the next, so you needed an implement to slice open the folds of paper and read the book."

"That's interesting," Li Moon remarked.

"It depends on how you look at it," Mighty said. "I fail to see how it could be of use here. We've never had a single book wash ashore the storms simply tear the pages apart."

Amy reached into her pocket and touched her hidden commonplace book. "You never know when a book might turn up," she pointed out. "In my opinion, that tool might be useful to keep around."

Mighty sighed, looking first at Amy and then at the girl who had found the item. "Well, I'm not going to force you, Li Moon," he said, "but if I were you I would toss that silly thing onto the sleigh."

"I'm sure you're right," Li Moon said, shrugging at Amy, and she put the page cutter next to the propeller as a plump man with a sunburned face stepped forward.

"Zazz's the name," said Zazz, with a little bow to all three siblings. "And I found a cheese grater. I nearly lost a finger prying it away from a nest of crabs!"

"You shouldn't have gone to all that trouble," Mighty said. "We're not going to have much use for a cheese grater without any cheese." "Grate coconut," Sonic said. "Delicious cake."

"Cake?" Zazz said. "Egad, that would be delicious. We haven't had dessert since I've arrived here."

"Coconut cordial is sweeter than dessert," Mighty said, raising his seashell to his lips. "I certainly wouldn't force you, Zazz, but I do think it would be best if that grater were thrown away."

Zazz took a sip from his own seashell, and then nodded, looking down at the sand.

"Very well," he said, and the rest of the morning proceeded in a similar

manner. Islander after islander introduced themselves and presented the items they had found, and nearly every time the colony's facilitator discouraged them from keeping anything. A bearded man named Storm found a pair of overalls, but Mighty reminded him that the colony only wore the customary white robes, even though Tails could imagine himself wearing them while inventing some sort of mechanical device, so as not to get his robe dirty. An old woman named Perici held up a pair of skis that Mighty dismissed as impractical, although Amy had read of people who had used skis to cross mud and sand, and a red-haired woman named Ella offered a salad spinner, but Mighty reminded her that the island's only salads were to be made from the seaweed that was rinsed in the pool and dried out in the sun, rather than spun, even though Sonic could almost taste a dried coconut snack that such an appliance could have made. A young Tenrec called Gold found a laptop computer that Tails always wanted, but Mighty pointed out it was useless without electricity, A lion called Cecil found a skateboard, but Mighty pointed out what use will it have on the island, although Amy thought it would be helpful for Mighty to travel around. And a swallow called Wave found a blender, but Mighty pointed out that it would be useless without electricity, but Sonic can think of many cooking ways with the blender.

When the islanders dumped the items in the arboretum, and the islanders excused themselves, at Mighty 's suggestion, to wash their hands for lunch. Within moments the only occupants of the tent were Mighty , the Hedge orphans, and the girl who had first brought them to the tent, as if the siblings were merely another piece of wreckage to be picked over for approval.

"Quite a storm, wasn't it?" asked Mighty , after a short silence. "We scavenged even more junk than usual."

"Were any other castaways found?" Tails asked.

"Do you mean Count Eggman?" Mighty asked. "After Cosmo abandoned him, he'd never dare approach the island. He's either wandering around the coastal shelf, or he's trying to swim his way back to wherever he came from."

The Hedges looked at one another, knowing full well that Count Eggman was likely hatching some scheme, particularly as none of the islanders

had found the boat's figurehead, where the deadly spores of the Medusoid Mycelium were hidden. "We weren't just thinking of Eggman," Amy said. "We had some friends who may have been caught in the same storm a pregnant woman named Vanilla Snicket who was in a submarine with some associates, and a group of people who were traveling by air." Mighty frowned, and drank some cordial from his seashell. "Those people haven't turned up," he said, "but don't despair, Hedges. It seems that everything eventually washes up on our shores. Perhaps their crafts were unharmed by the storm."

"Perhaps," Sonic agreed, trying not to think that they might not have been as lucky as that.

"They might turn up in the next day or so," Mighty continued. "Another storm is heading this way."

"How do you know?" Tails asked. "Is there a barometer on the island?" "There's no barometer," Mighty said, referring to a device that measures the pressure in the atmosphere, which is one way of predicting the weather. "I just know there's one coming."

"How would you know such a thing?" Amy asked, stopping himself from retrieving his commonplace book so he could take notes. "I've always heard that the weather is difficult to predict without advanced instruments."

"We don't need any advanced instruments on this colony," Mighty said. "I predict the weather by using magic."

"Meledrub," Sonic said, which meant something along the lines of, "I find that very difficult to believe," and her siblings silently agreed. The Hedges, as a rule, did not believe in magic, although their mother had had a nifty card trick she could occasionally be persuaded to

perform. Like all people who have seen something of the world, the children had come across plenty of things they had been unable to explain, from the diabolical hypnotism techniques of Dr. Rouge Orwell to the way a girl named Fiona had broken Tails' heart, but they had never been tempted to solve these mysteries with a supernatural explanation like magic. Late at night, of course, when one is sitting upright in bed, having been woken up by a sudden loud noise, one believes in all sorts of supernatural things, but it was early afternoon, and the Hedges simply could not imagine that Mighty was some sort of magical weatherman. Their doubt must have shown on their faces, for the facilitator immediately did what many people do when they are not believed, and hurriedly changed the subject.

"What about you, Cosmo?" Mighty asked. "Did you find anything else besides the castaways and those awful sunglasses?"

Cosmo looked quickly at Sonic, but then shook her head firmly. "No," she said.

"Then please go help your mother with lunch," he said, "while I talk to our new colonists."

"Do I have to?" Cosmo asked. "I'd rather stay here, with the Hedges."

"I'm not going to force you," Mighty said gently, "but I'm sure your mother could use some help."

Without another word, Cosmo turned and left the tent, walking up the sloping beach toward the other tents of the colony, and the Hedges were alone with their facilitator, who leaned down to speak quietly to the orphans.

"Hedges," he said, "as your facilitator, allow me to give you a piece of advice, as you begin your stay on this island."

"What might that be?" Tails asked. Mighty looked around the tent, as if

spies were lurking behind the white, fluttering fabric. He took another sip from his seashell, and cracked his knuckles. "Don't rock the boat," he said, using an expression which here means "Don't upset people by doing something that is not customary." His tone was very cordial, but the children could hear something less cordial almost hidden in his voice, the way a coastal shelf is almost hidden by water. "We've been living by our customs for quite some time. Most of us can scarcely remember our lives before we became castaways, and there is a whole generation of islanders who have never lived anywhere else. My advice to you is not to ask so many questions or meddle around too much with our customs. We have taken you in, Hedges, which is a kindness, and we expect kindness in return. If you keep prying into the affairs of the island, people are going to think you're unkind–just like Cosmo thought Eggman was unkind. So don't rock the boat. After all, rocking the boat is what got you here in the first place."

Mighty smiled at his little joke, and although they found nothing funny about poking fun at a shipwreck that had nearly killed them, the children gave Mighty a nervous smile in return, and said no more. The tent was silent for a few minutes, until a pleasant-looking woman with a freckly face walked into the tent carrying an enormous clay jar.

"You must be the Hedges," she said, as Cosmo followed her into the tent carrying a stack of bowls fashioned from coconut shells, "and you must be starving, too. I'm Mrs. Caliban, Cosmo's mother, and I do most of the cooking around here. Why don't you have some lunch?"

"That would be wonderful," Amy said. "We're quite hungry."

"Whatya fixin?" asked Sonic.

Mrs. Caliban smiled, and opened the jar so the children could peek inside. "Ceviche," she said. "It's a South American dish of chopped raw seafood."

"Oh," Tails said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. Ceviche is an acquired taste, a phrase which here means "something you don't like the first few times you eat it," and although the Hedges had eaten ceviche before–their mother used to make it in the Hedge kitchen, to celebrate the beginning of crab season–it was none of the children's favorite food, and not precisely what they had in mind as a first meal after being shipwrecked. When I was shipwrecked recently, for instance, I had the fortune to wash aboard a barge where I enjoyed a late supper of roast leg of lamb with creamed polenta and a fricassee of baby artichokes, followed by some aged Gouda served with roasted figs, and finished up with some fresh strawberries dipped in milk chocolate and crushed honeycomb, and I found this to be a wonderful antidote to being tossed like a rag doll in the turbulent waters of a particularly stormy creek. But the Hedges accepted their bowls of ceviche, as well as the strange utensils Cosmo handed them, which were made of wood and looked like a combination of a fork and a spoon.

"They're runcible spoons," Cosmo explained. "We don't have forks or knives in the colony, as they can be used as weapons."

"I suppose that's sensible," Amy said,

although she couldn't help but think that nearly anything could be used as

a weapon, if one were in a weaponry mood. As she had read about multiple murders that has been committed with everyday objects.

"I hope you like it," Mrs. Caliban said. "There's not much else you can cook with raw seafood."

"Negihama," Sonic said.

"My brother is something of a chef," Tails explained, "and was suggesting that he could prepare some Japanese dishes for the colony, if there were any wasabi to be had."

The younger Hedges gave their brother a brief nod, realizing that Tails was asking about wasabi not only because it might allow Sonic to make something palatable–a word which here means "that wasn't ceviche"–but because wasabi, which is a sort of horseradish often used in Japanese food, was one of the few defenses against the Medusoid Mycelium, and with Count Eggman lurking about, he wanted to think about possible strategies should the deadly fungus be let loose from the helmet.

"We don't have any wasabi," Mrs. Caliban said. "We don't have any spices at all, in fact. No spices have washed up on the coastal shelf." "Even if they did," Mighty added quickly, "I think we'd just throw them in the arboretum. The stomachs of the colonists are used to spiceless ceviche, and we wouldn't want to rock the boat."

Amy took a bite of ceviche from his runcible spoon, and grimaced at the taste. Traditionally a ceviche is marinated in spices, which gives it an unusual but often delicious flavor, but without such seasoning, Mrs.

Caliban's ceviche tasted like whatever you might find in a fish's mouth while it was eating. "Do you eat ceviche for every meal?" he asked.

"Certainly not," Mrs. Caliban said with a little laugh. "That would get tiresome, wouldn't it? No, we only have ceviche for lunch. Every morning we have seaweed salad for breakfast, and for dinner we have a mild onion soup served with a handful of wild grass. You might get tired

of such bland food, but it tastes better if you wash it down with coconut cordial." Cosmo's mother reached into a deep pocket in her white robe, and brought out three large seashells that had been fashioned into

canteens, and handed one to each Hedge.

"Let's drink a toast," Cosmo suggested, holding up her own seashell. Mrs. Caliban raised hers, and Mighty wiggled in his clay chair and opened the stopper of his seashell once more.

"An excellent idea," the facilitator said, with a wide, wide smile. "Let's drink a toast to the Hedge orphans!"

"To the Hedges!" agreed Mrs. Caliban, raising her seashell. "Welcome to the island!"

"I hope you stay here forever and ever!" Cosmo cried.

The Hedges looked at the three islanders grinning at them, and tried their best to grin back, although they had so much on their minds that their grins were not very enthusiastic. The Hedges wondered if they really had to eat spiceless ceviche, not only for this particular lunch, but for future lunches on the island. The Hedges wondered if they had to drink more of the coconut cordial, and if refusing to do so would be considered rocking the boat. They wondered why the figurehead of the boat had not been found, and they wondered where Count Eggman was, and what he was up to, and they wondered about their friends and associates who were somewhere at sea, and about all of the people they had left behind in the Hotel Denouement. But at this moment, the Hedges wondered one thing most of all, and that was why Mighty had called them orphans, when they hadn't told him their whole story. Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked first at their bowls of ceviche, and then at Cosmo and her mother, and then at their seashells, and finally up at Mighty , who was smiling down at them from his enormous chair, and the castaways wondered if they really had reached a place that was far from the world's treachery or if the world's treachery was just hidden someplace, the way Count Eggman was hidden somewhere very nearby at that very moment.

They looked up at their facilitator, uncertain if they were safe after all, and wondering what they could do about it if they weren't.

"I won't force you," Mighty said quietly to the children, and the Hedge orphans wondered if that were true after all.

Five

Unless you are unusually insouciant–which is merely a fancy way of saying "the opposite of curious"–or one of the Hedge orphans yourself, you are probably wondering whether or not the three children drank the coconut cordial that was offered them rather forcefully by Mighty . Perhaps you have been in situations yourself, where you have been offered a beverage or food you would rather not consume by someone you would rather not refuse, or perhaps you have been warned about people who will offer such things and told to avoid succumbing, a word which here means "accepting, rather than refusing, what you are given." Such situations are often referred to as incidents of "peer pressure," as "peer" is a word for someone with whom you are associating and "pressure" is a word for the influence such people often have. If you are a braeman or braewoman–a term for someone who lives all alone on a hill–then peer pressure is fairly easy to avoid, as you have no peers except for the occasional wild sheep who may wander near your cave and try to pressure you into growing a woolly coat. But if you live among people, whether they are people in your family, in your school, or in your secret organization, then every moment of your life is an incident of peer pressure, and you cannot avoid it any more than a boat at sea can avoid a surrounding storm. If you wake up in the morning at a particular time, when you would rather hide your head under your pillow until you are too hungry to stand it any

longer, then you are succumbing to the peer pressure of your warden or morning butler. If you eat a breakfast that someone prepares for you, or prepare your own breakfast from food you have purchased, when you would rather stomp your feet and demand delicacies from faraway lands, then you are succumbing to the peer pressure of your grocer or breakfast chef. All day long, everyone in the world is succumbing to peer pressure, whether it's the pressure of their fourth grade peers to play dodge ball during recess or the pressure of their fellow circus performers to balance rubber balls on their noses, and if you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.

The Hedge orphans had been uncomfortable more than enough times over the course of their misadventures, and having found themselves on a distant island with only one set of peers to choose from, they succumbed to the pressure of Mighty , and Cosmo, and Mrs.

Caliban, and all of the other islanders who lived with the children in their new home. They sat in Mighty 's tent, and drank a bit of coconut cordial as they ate their lunch of spice-free ceviche, even though the drink left them feeling a bit dizzy and the food left them feeling a bit slimy, rather than leaving the colony and finding their own food and drink. They wore their white robes, even though they were a bit heavy for the warm weather, rather than trying to fashion garments of their own. And they kept quiet about the discouraged items they were keeping in their pockets–Tails' hair ribbon, Amy's commonplace book, and Sonic's

whisk–rather than rocking the boat, as the colony's facilitator had warned them, not even daring to ask Cosmo why she had given Sonic the kitchen implement in the first place.

But despite the strong taste of cordial, the bland taste of the food, the unflattering robes, and the secret items, the Hedges still felt more at home than they had in quite some time. Although the children had always managed to find a companion or two no matter where they wandered, the Hedges had not really been accepted by any sort of community since Count Eggman had framed the children for murder, forcing them to hide and disguise themselves countless times. The Hedges felt safe living with the colony, knowing that Count Eggman was not allowed near them, and that their associates, if they, too, ended up as castaways, would be welcomed into the tent as long as they, too, succumbed to the islanders' peer pressure.

Spiceless food, unflattering clothing, and suspicious beverages seemed a fair price to pay for a safe place to call home, and for a group of people who, if not exactly friends, were at least companions for as long as they wished to stay.

The days passed, and the island remained a safe if bland place for the siblings. Tails would have liked to spend his days assisting the islanders in the building of the enormous outrigger, but at Mighty 's suggestion he assisted Cosmo, Storm, and Professor Finitevus with the colony's laundry, and spent most of his time at the saltwater falls, washing everyone's robes and laying them out on rocks to dry in the sun. Amy would have enjoyed walking over the brae to catalog all of the detritus the colonists had collected while storm scavenging, but everyone had agreed with the facilitator's idea that the middle Hedge would stay at Mighty 's side at all times, so she spent her days piling clay on the old

man's feet, and running to refill his seashell with cordial.

Only Sonic was allowed to do something in his area of expertise, but assisting Mrs. Caliban with the cooking was not very interesting, as the colony's three meals were very easy to prepare. Every morning, the youngest Hedge would retrieve the seaweed that Ray and Li Moon had harvested from the sea, after it had been rinsed by Zazz and Storm and laid out to dry by Perici and Ella, and simply throw it into a bowl for breakfast. In the afternoon, Bark and Methilius would bring an enormous pile of fish they had captured in the colony's nets, so Sonic and Mrs. Caliban could mush it into ceviche with their runcible spoons, and in the evening the two chefs would light a fire and slowly simmer a pot of wild onions Chris and Boomer had picked, along with wild grasses reaped by Buns and Honey that served as dinner's only spice, and serve the soup alongside seashells full of the coconut cordial Bokkun and Zavok had fermented from coconuts Mr. Ashura and Ms. Zeena had gathered from the island's coconut trees. None of these recipes was very challenging to prepare, and Sonic ended up spending much of her day in idleness, a word which here means "lounging around with Mrs. Caliban, sipping coconut cordial and staring at the sea."

After so many frantic encounters and tragic experiences, the children were not accustomed to leading such a calm life, and for the first few days they felt a bit restless without the treachery of Count Eggman and his sinister mysteries, and the integrity of V.F.D. and its noble deeds, but with every good night's sleep in the breezy comfort of a tent, and every day's work at easy tasks, and every sip of the sweet coconut cordial, the strife and treachery of the children's lives felt farther and farther away. After a few days, another storm arrived, just as Mighty had predicted, and as the sky blackened and the island was covered in wind and rain,

the Hedges huddled with the other islanders in the facilitator's tent, and they were grateful for their uneventful life on the colony, rather than the stormy existence they had endured since their parents had died. "Janiceps," Sonic said to his siblings the next morning, as the Hedges walked along the coastal shelf. According to custom, the islanders were all storm scavenging, and here and there on the flat horizon, poking at the detritus of the storm. By "Janiceps," the youngest Hedge meant "I'm of two minds about living here," an expression which means that he couldn't decide if he liked the island colony or not. "I know what you mean," Amy said, who was carrying Sonic on her shoulders. "Life isn't very exciting here, but at least we're not in any danger."

"I suppose we should be grateful for that," Tails said, "even though life in the colony seems quite strict."

"Mighty keeps saying he won't force us to do anything," Amy said, "but everything feels a bit forced anyway."

"At least they forced Eggman away," Tails pointed out, "which is more than

V.F.D. ever accomplished."

"Diaspora," Sonic said, which meant something like, "We live in such a distant place that the battle between V.F.D. and their enemies seems very far away."

"The only V.F.D. around here," Amy said, leaning down to peer into a pool of water, "is our Very Flavorless Diet."

Tails smiled. "Not so long ago," he said, "we were desperate to reach the last safe place by Thursday. Now, everywhere we look is safe, and we have no idea what day it's."

"I still miss home," Sonic said.

"Me too," Amy said. "For some reason I keep missing the library at

Lucky Smells Lumbermill."

"Big's library?" Tails asked, with an amazed smile. "It was a beautiful room, but it only had three books. Why on earth do you miss that place?"

"Three books are better than none," Amy said. "The only thing I've read since we arrived here is my own commonplace book. I suggested to Mighty that he could dictate a history of the colony to me, and that I'd write it down so the islanders would know about how this place came to be. Other colonists could write down their own stories, and eventually this island would have its own library. But Mighty said that he wouldn't force me, but he didn't think it would be a good idea to write a book that would upset people with its descriptions of storms and castaways. I don't want to rock the boat, but I miss my research."

"I know what you mean," Tails said. "I keep missing Madame Lulu's fortune-telling tent."

"With all those phony magic tricks?" Amy said.

"Her inventions were pretty ridiculous," Tails admitted, "but if I had those simple mechanical materials, I think I could make a simple water filtration system. If we could manufacture fresh water, the islanders wouldn't have to drink coconut cordial all day long. But Cosmo said that the drinking of the cordial was inveterate."

"Nospine?" Sonic asked.

"She meant people had been drinking it for so long that they wouldn't want to stop," Tails said. "I don't want to rock the boat, but I miss working on inventions. What about you, Sonic? What do you miss?" "Fountain," Sonic said.

"The Fowl Fountain, at the Village of Fowl Devotees?" Amy asked. "No," Sonic said, shaking his head. "In city."

"The Fountain of Victorious Finance?" Tails asked. "Why on earth would you miss that?"

"First swim," Sonic said, and his siblings gasped.

"You can't remember that," Amy said. "You were just a few weeks old," Tails said.

"I remember," Sonic said firmly, the Hedges shook their heads in wonder. Sonic was talking about an afternoon long ago, during an unusually hot autumn in the city. The Hedge parents had some business to attend to, and brought along the children, promising to stop at the ice cream store on the way home. The family had arrived at the banking district, pausing to rest at the Fountain of Victorious Finance, and the Hedges' mother had hurried into a building with tall, curved towers poking out in all directions, while their father waited outside with the children. The hot weather made Sonic very cranky, and he began to fuss. To quiet him, the Hedges' father dipped his bare feet in the water, and Sonic had smiled so enthusiastically that he had begun to dunk Sonic's body, clothes and all, into the fountain, until the youngest Hedge was screaming with laughter. As you may know, the laughter of babies is often very contagious, and before long not only were Tails

and Amy also jumping into the fountain, but the Hedges' father, too, all of them laughing and laughing as Sonic grew more and more delighted. Soon the Hedges' mother came out of the building, and looked in astonishment for a moment at her soaking and giggling family, before putting down her pocketbook, kicking off her shoes, and joining them in the refreshing water. They laughed all the way home, each footstep a wet squish, and sat out on their front steps to dry in the sun. It was a wonderful day, but very long ago–so long ago Tails and Amy had

almost forgotten it themselves. But as Sonic reminded them, they could almost hear his newborn laughter, and see the incredulous looks of the bankers who were passing by.

"It's hard to believe," Tails said, "that our parents could laugh like that, when they were already involved with V.F.D. and all its troubles."

"The schism must have seemed a world away that day," Amy said.

"And now," Sonic said, and his siblings nodded in agreement. With the morning sun blazing overhead, and the sea sparkling at the edge of the coastal shelf, their surroundings seemed as far from trouble and treachery as that afternoon in the Fountain of Victorious Finance. But trouble and treachery are rarely as far away as one thinks they are on the clearest of days. On that faraway afternoon in the banking district, for instance, trouble could be found in the corridors of the towered building, where the Hedges' mother was handed a weather report and a naval map that would reveal, when she studied them by candlelight that evening, far greater trouble than she had imagined, and treachery could be found just past the fountain, where a woman disguised as a pretzel vendor took a photograph of the laughing family, and slipped her camera into the coat pocket of a financial expert who was hurrying to a restaurant, where the coat-check boy would remove the camera and hide it in an enormous parfait glass of fruit that a certain playwright would

order for dessert, only to have a quick-thinking waitress pretend that the cream in the zabaglione sauce had gone sour and dump the entire dish into a garbage can in the alley, where I had been sitting for hours, pretending to look for a lost puppy who was actually scurrying into the back entrance of the towered building, removing her disguise, and folding it into her handbag, and this morning on the coastal shelf was no different. The Hedges took a few more steps in silence, squinting

into the sun, and then Sonic knocked gently on his sister's head and pointed out at the horizon. The three children looked carefully, and saw an object resting unevenly on the edge of the shelf, and this was trouble, even though it didn't look like trouble at the time. It was hard to say what it looked like, only that it was large, and square, and ragged, and the children hurried closer to get a better view. Tails led the way, stepping carefully around a few crabs snapping along the shelf, and Amy followed behind, with Sonic still on his shoulders, and even when they reached the object they found it difficult to identify.

At first glance, the large, square, ragged object looked like a combination of everything the Hedges missed. It looked like a library, because the object seemed to be nothing more than stacks and stacks of books, piled neatly on top of one another in a huge cube. But it also looked like an invention, because wrapped around the cube of books, the way string is wrapped around a package, were thick straps that appeared to be made out of rubber, in varying shades of green, and on one side of the cube was affixed a large flap of battered wood. And it also looked like a fountain, as water was trickling out of it from all sides, leaking through the bloated pages of the books and splashing down to the sand of the coastal shelf. But although this was a very unusual sight, the children stared not at the cube but at something at the top of this strange contraption. It was a bare foot, hanging

over the side of the cube as if there were someone sleeping on the top of all those books, and the Hedges could see, right on the ankle, a tattoo of an eye.

"Eggman?" Sonic asked, but her siblings shook their heads. They had seen Count Eggman's foot more times than they would like to count, and this foot

was much narrower and cleaner than the villain's.

"Climb onto my back," Tails said to his sister. "Maybe we can hoist Sonic to the top."

Amy nodded, climbed carefully onto his brother's back, and then, very slowly, stood on Tails' shoulders. The three Hedges stood in a trembling tower, and Sonic reached out his little hands and pulled himself up, as he had pulled herself out of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue not so long ago, and saw the woman who was lying unconscious on top of the stack of books. She was a rabbit dressed in a dress of dark red velvet, which was streaked and soaked from the rain, and her hair lay sprawled behind her like a wide, tangled fan. The foot that was hanging over the side of the cube was bent a strange, wrong way, but she looked otherwise unharmed. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was frowning, but her belly, full and round from her pregnancy, rose and fell with calm, deep breaths, and her hands, covered in long, white gloves, lay gently on her chest, as if she were comforting herself, or her child.

"Vanilla Snicket," Sonic called down to his siblings, his voice hushed with amazement.

"Yes?" replied a voice that was high-pitched and grating, a word which here means "irritating, and sadly familiar." From behind the cube of books, a figure stepped out to greet the children, and Sonic looked down and frowned as the tower of elder Hedges turned to face the person who was confronting them. This person was also wearing a talaric–a word which here means "just reaching the ankles"–dress that was streaked and soaked, although the dress was

not just red but orange and yellow as well, the colors melting together as

the person walked closer and closer to the children. This person was not wearing gloves, but a pile of seaweed had been arranged to resemble long hair, which cascaded hideously down this person's back, and although this person's belly was also full and round, it was full and round in an odd and unconvincing way. It would have been very unusual if the belly were genuine, because it was obvious from looking at the person's face that the person was not a woman, and pregnancy occurs very, very, very rarely in males, although the male seahorse is a creature that becomes pregnant from time to time.

But this person, stepping closer and closer to the towered elder Hedges and gazing angrily up at the youngest, was no seahorse, of course. If the odd cube of books was trouble, then this man was treachery, and as is so often the case with treachery, his name was Count Eggman. Tails and Amy stared at the villain, and Sonic stared at Vanilla, and then the three children looked out at the horizon, where other islanders who had spotted the strange object were heading toward them. Lastly, the Hedge orphans looked at one another, and wondered if a schism were so very far away after all, or if they had traveled a world away only to find all the trouble and treachery of the world staring them right in the face.

SIX

At this point, you may find yourself recognizing all of the sad hallmarks of the Hedge orphans' sad history. The word "hallmarks" refers to something's distinguishing characteristics, such as the frothy foam and loud fizz that are the hallmarks of a root beer float, or the tearstained photographs and the loud fizz that are the hallmarks of a broken heart. Certainly the Hedges themselves, who as far as I know have not read their own sad history, but of course are its primary participants, had a queasy feeling in their stomachs as the islanders approached them, holding various items they had found while storm scavenging. It appeared that once again, after arriving in a strange new home, Count Eggman would fool everyone with his latest disguise, and the Hedges would once again be in grave danger. In fact, Count Eggman's talaric disguise did not even cover the tattoo of an eye he wore on his ankle, as the islanders, living so far from the world, would not know about this notorious mark and so could be fooled even more easily. But as the colonists drew close to the cube of books where Vanilla Snicket lay unconscious, suddenly the Hedges' history went contrary to expectations, a phrase which here means "The young girl they had first met on the coastal shelf recognized Count Eggman immediately."

"That's Eggman!" Cosmo cried, pointing an accusatory finger at the villain.

"Why is he dressed as a pregnant woman?"

"I'm dressed as a pregnant woman because I am a pregnant woman,"

Count Eggman replied, in his high-pitched, disguised voice. "My name

is Vanilla Snicket, and I've been looking everywhere for these children." "You're not Vanilla Snicket!" Mrs. Caliban cried.

"Vanilla Snicket is up on this pile of books," Tails said indignantly, helping

Sonic down from the top of the cube. "She's a friend of ours, and she may be hurt, or ill. But this is Count Eggman, who is no friend of ours." "He's no friend of ours, either," Cosmo said, and there was a murmur of

agreement from the islanders.

"Just because you've put something inside your dress to look pregnant, and thrown a clump of seaweed on your hair to make a wig, doesn't mean you won't be recognized." She turned to face the three children, who noticed for the first time that the islander had a suspicious bump under her robe, as if she, too, had hidden something under her clothing. "I hope he hasn't been bothering you. I told him specifically to go away."

Count Eggman glared at Cosmo, but then turned to try his treachery on the other islanders. "You primitive people won't tell a pregnant woman to go away, will you?" he asked. "I'm in a very delicate condition."

"You're not in a very delicate condition," said Methilius firmly. "You're in a very transparent disguise. If Cosmo says you're this Eggman person, then I'm sure you are, and you're not welcome here, due to your unkindness."

"I've never been unkind in my life," Eggman said, running a bony hand through his seaweed. "I'm nothing but a fairly innocent maiden with my belly full of baby. It's the Hedges who have been unkind, along with this impostor sleeping on top of this damp library."

"Library?" Finitevus said with a gasp. "We've never had a library on the island."

"Mighty said that a library was bound to lead to trouble," said Buns,

"so we were lucky that a book has never ended up on our shores."

"You see?" Eggman said, his orange and yellow dress rustling in the morning breeze. "That treacherous woman up there has dragged these books to your colony, just to be unkind to you poor primitive people. And the Hedges are friends with her! They're the ones you should abandon here, and I should be welcomed to Eggman-Land and given gifts."

"This island is not called Eggman-Land!" cried Cosmo. "And you're the one we abandoned!"

"This is confusing!" cried Chris. "We need a facilitator to sort this out!" "Chris is right," said Honey. "We shouldn't decide anything until

we've talked to Mighty . Come on, let's take all this detritus to Mighty 's tent."

The colonists nodded, and a few villagers walked together to the cube of books and began to push it along the shelf. It was difficult work, and the cube shuddered as it was dragged along the bumpy surface. The Hedges saw Kit's foot bob violently up and down and feared that their friend would fall.

"Stop," Amy said. "It's not safe to move someone who may be seriously injured, particularly if she's pregnant."

"Amy is right," said Dr. Nega. "I remember that from my days in veterinary school."

"If Muhammad will not come to the mountain," Rabbi Jules said, using an expression that the islanders understood at once, "the mountain will come to Muhammad."

"But how can Mighty come here?" asked Perici. "He couldn't walk all this way with his injured feet."

"The sheep can drag him here," said Zazz. "We can put his chair on the sleigh. Cosmo, you guard Eggman and the Hedges, while the rest of

us will go fetch our facilitator."

"And some more coconut cordial," said Madame Lumina. "I'm thirsty and my seashell is almost empty."

There was a murmur of agreement from the islanders, and they began to make their way back toward the island, still carrying all of the items they had found while scavenging. In a few minutes, the colonists were nothing more than faint shapes on the misty horizon, and the Hedges were alone with Count Eggman and with Cosmo, who took a big sip from her seashell and then smiled at the children.

"Don't worry, Hedges," the girl said, holding one hand over the bulge in her robe. "We'll sort this out. I promise you that this terrible man will be abandoned once and for all."

"I'm not a man," Eggman insisted in his disguised voice. "I'm a lady with a baby inside her."

"Pellucid theatrics," Sonic said.

"My brother's right," Tails said. "Your disguise isn't working."

"Oh, I don't think you'd want me to stop pretending," the villain said. He was still talking in his ridiculous high-pitched voice, but his eyes shone brightly from behind his seaweed bangs. He reached behind him and revealed the harpoon gun, with its bright red trigger and one last harpoon ready to be fired. "If I were to say that I was Count Eggman, instead of Vanilla Snicket, I might begin behaving like a villain, rather than a noble person."

"You've never behaved like a noble person," Amy said, "no matter what name you've been using. And that weapon doesn't scare us. You only have one harpoon, and this island is full of people who know how wicked and unkind you are."

"Amy is right," Cosmo said. "You might as well put your weapon down. It's useless in a place like this."

Count Eggman looked first at Cosmo, and then at the three Hedges, and he opened his mouth as if to say another treacherous thing in his disguised voice. But then he shut his mouth again, and glared down at the puddles of the coastal shelf. "I'm tired of wandering around here," he muttered. "There's nothing to eat but seaweed and raw fish, and everything valuable has been taken by all those fools in robes."

"If you didn't behave so horridly," Cosmo said, "you could live on the island."

The Hedges looked at one another nervously. Although it seemed a bit cruel to abandon Eggman on the shelf, they did not like the idea that he might be welcomed into the colony. Cosmo, of course, did not know the whole story of Count Eggman, and had only experienced his unkindness once, on the day she first encountered him, but the Hedges could not tell Cosmo the whole story of Eggman without telling the whole story of themselves, and they did not know what Cosmo would think of their own unkindnesses and treachery.

Count Eggman looked at Cosmo as if thinking something over. Then, with a suspicious smile, he turned to the Hedges and held out the harpoon gun. "I suppose you're right," he said. "The harpoon gun is useless in a place like this." He was still talking in his disguised voice, and his hand caressed his false pregnancy as if there were actually a baby growing inside him. The Hedges looked at Eggman and then at the weapon. The last time the children had touched the harpoon gun, the penultimate harpoon had fired and a noble man by the name of Dewey had been killed. Tails, Amy, and Sonic would never forget the sight of Dewey sinking into the waters of the pond as he died, and looking at the villain offering them the weapon only reminded them of how dangerous and terrible the weapon was.

"We don't want that," Tails said. "Obviously this is some trick of yours," Amy said.

"It's no trick," Eggman said in his high-pitched voice. "I'm giving up my villainous ways, and I want to live with you on the island. I'm sorry to hear that you don't believe me."

His face was very serious, as if he were very sorry to hear that, but his eyes were shiny and bright, the way they are when someone is telling a joke. "Fibber," Sonic said.

"You insult me, madam," Eggman said. "I'm as honest as the day is long." The villain was using an expression that is used by many people despite the fact that it scarcely means anything at all. Some days are long, such as at the height of summer, when the sun shines for a very long time, or Halloween day, which always seems to last forever until it's finally time to put on one's costume and demand candy from strangers, and some days are short, particularly during the wintertime or when one is doing something enjoyable, such as reading a good book or following random people on the street to see where they will go, and so if someone is as honest as the day is long, they may not be honest at all. The children were relieved to see that Cosmo was not fooled by Eggman's use of a vague expression, and she frowned at the villain sternly.

"The Hedges told me you were not to be trusted," the young girl said, "and I can see that they spoke the truth. You'll stay right here, Eggman, until the others arrive and we decide what to do with you."

"I'm not Count Eggman," Count Eggman said, "but in the meantime, could I have a sip of this coconut cordial I heard mentioned?"

"No," Cosmo said, and turned her back on the villain to gaze wistfully at the cube of books. "I've never seen a book before," she confessed to the Hedges. "I hope Mighty thinks it's O.K. to keep them here."

"You've never seen a book?" Tails said in amazement. "Do you know how to read?"

Cosmo took a quick look around the coastal shelf, and then nodded her head quickly. "Yes," she said. "Mighty didn't think it was a good idea to teach us, but Professor Finitevus disagreed, and held secret classes on the coastal shelf for those of us who were born on the island. From time to time, I keep in practice by sketching the alphabet in the sand with a stick, but without a library there's not much I can do. I hope Mighty won't suggest that we let the sheep drag all these books to the arboretum." "Even if he does, you won't have to throw them away," Amy reminded her. "He won't force you."

"I know," Cosmo said with a sigh. "But when Mighty suggests something, everybody agrees, and it's hard not to succumb to that kind of peer pressure."

"Whisk," Sonic reminded her, and took the kitchen implement out of his pocket.

Cosmo smiled at the youngest Hedge, but quickly put the item back in Sonic's pocket. "I gave you that whisk because you said you were interested in cooking," she said. "It seemed a shame to deny your interests just because Mighty might not think a kitchen implement was appropriate. You'll keep my secret, won't you?"

"Of course," Tails said, "but it's also a shame to deny your interest in reading." "Maybe Mighty won't object," Cosmo said. "Maybe," Amy said, "or maybe we could try a little peer pressure of our own."

"I don't want to rock the boat," Cosmo said

with a frown. "Ever since my father's death, my mother has wanted me

to be safe, which is why we left the world far behind and decided to stay

here on the island. But the older I get, it seems the more secrets I have. Professor Finitevus taught me secretly to read. Chris taught me secretly to skip rocks, even though Mighty says it's dangerous. I secretly gave Sonic a whisk." She reached into her robe, and smiled. "And now I have another secret, just for me. Look what I found curled up in a broken wooden crate."

Count Eggman had been glaring silently at the children, but as Cosmo revealed her secret he let out a shriek even more high-pitched than his fake voice. But the Hedge orphans did not shriek, even though Cosmo was holding a frightening looking thing, as dark as a coal mine and as thick as a sewer pipe, that uncurled itself and quickly darted toward the three children. Even as the creature opened its mouth, the morning sun glinting on its sharp teeth, the Hedges did not shriek, but marveled that once again their history was going contrary to expectations.

"Incredi!" Sonic cried, and it was true, for the enormous snake that was wrapping itself around the Hedges was, incredibly, a creature they had not seen for quite some time and never thought they would see again in their lives.

"It's the Incredibly Deadly Viper!" Amy said in amazement. "How in the world did it end up here?"

"Mighty said that everything eventually washes up on the shores of this island," Tails said, "but I never thought I'd see this reptile again." "Deadly?" Cosmo asked nervously. "Is it poisonous? It seemed friendly to me."

"It's friendly," Amy reassured her. "It's one of the least deadly and most friendly creatures in the animal kingdom. Its name is a misnomer." "How can you be sure?" Cosmo asked.

"We knew the man who discovered it," Tails said. "His name was Dr. Knuckles Knuckles, and he was a brilliant herpetologist."

"He was a wonderful man," Amy said. "We miss him very much." The Hedges hugged the snake, particularly Sonic, who'd had a

special attachment to the playful reptile, and thought for a moment of kind Uncle Knuckles and the days the children had spent with him. Then, slowly, they remembered how those days had ended, and they turned to look at Count Eggman, who had slaughtered Knuckles as part of a treacherous plot. Count Eggman frowned, and looked back at them. It was strange to see the villain just sitting there, shuddering at a snake, after his murderous scheme to get the orphans in his clutches. Now, so far from the world, it was as if Eggman no longer had clutches, and his murderous schemes were as useless as the harpoon gun that lay in his hands.

"I've always wanted to meet a herpetologist," said Cosmo, who of course did not know the whole story of Knuckles and his murder. "The island doesn't have an expert on snakes. There's

so much of the world I'm missing by living here."

"The world is a wicked place," Count Eggman said quietly, and now it was the Hedges who shuddered. Even with the hot sun beating down on them, and the weight of the Incredibly Deadly Viper in their laps, the children felt a chill at the villain's words, and everyone was silent, watching the islanders approach along with the sheep, who had Mighty in tow, a phrase which here means "dragged along on the sleigh behind them, sitting on his white chair as if he were a king, with his feet still covered in hunks of clay and his woolly beard billowing in the wind." As the colonists and sheep walked closer and closer, the children could see that the sheep had something else in tow, too, which sat on the sleigh

behind the facilitator's chair. It was the large, ornate bird cage that had been found after the previous storm, shining in the sunlight like a small fire.

"Count Eggman," Mighty said in a booming voice, as soon as his chair arrived. He stared down at the villain scornfully but also carefully, as if memorizing his face.

"Mighty ," Count Eggman said, in his disguised tone.

"Call me Might," Mighty said. "Call me Vanilla Snicket," Eggman said.

"I'm not going to call you anything," Mighty growled. "Your reign of treachery is over, Eggman." In one swift motion, the facilitator leaned down and snatched the seaweed wig off Eggman's head. "I've been told of your schemes and disguises, and we won't stand for it. You'll be locked up immediately."

Jonah and Sadie lifted the bird cage from the sleigh, set it on the ground, and pushed open its door, glaring meaningfully at Count Eggman. With a nod from Mighty , Ella and Ms. Zeena stepped toward the villain, wrestled the harpoon gun from his hands, and dragged him toward the

bird cage, as the Hedge orphans looked at one another, unsure exactly how they felt. On one hand, it seemed as if the children had been waiting their entire lives for someone to utter precisely the words Mighty had uttered, and they were eager for Eggman to finally be punished for his dreadful acts, from his recent kidnapping of Justice Tikal Strauss to the time, long ago, when he had thrown Sonic into a bird cage and dangled her from his tower window. But they weren't convinced that Count Eggman should be locked in a cage himself, even a cage as large as the one that had washed ashore. It wasn't clear to the children if what was happening now, on the coastal shelf, was the arrival of justice at last, or just another unfortunate event. Throughout their history the Hedges had

always hoped that Count Eggman would end up in the hands of the authorities, and would be punished by the High Court after a trial. But members of the High Court had turned out to be as corrupt and sinister as Eggman himself, and the authorities were far, far away from the island, and looking for the Hedges in order to charge them with arson and murder. It was difficult to say, so far from the world, how the three children felt about Count Eggman being dragged into a bird cage, but as was so often the case, it did not matter how the three children felt about it, because it happened anyway. Ella and Ms. Zeena dragged the struggling villain to the door of the bird cage and forced him to duck inside. He snarled, and wrapped his arms around his false pregnancy, and rested his head against his knees, and hunched his back, and the Bellamy siblings shut the door of the cage and latched it securely. The villain fit in the cage, but just barely, and you had to look closely to see that the mess of limbs and hair and orange and yellow cloth was a person at all. "This isn't fair," Eggman said. His voice was muffled from inside the cage, although the children noticed that he was still using a high pitched tone, as if he could not help pretending

to be Vanilla Snicket. "I'm an innocent pregnant woman, and these children are the real villains. You haven't heard the whole story."

"It depends on how you look at it," Mighty said firmly. "Cosmo told me you were unkind, and that's all we need to hear. And this seaweed wig is all we need to see!"

"Mighty 's right," Mrs. Caliban said firmly. "You've been nothing but

treacherous, Eggman, and the Hedges have been nothing but good!" "'Nothing but good,'" Eggman repeated. "Ha! Why don't you look in the baby's pockets if you think he's so good. he's hiding a kitchen implement that one of your precious islanders gave her!"

Mighty peered down at the youngest Hedge from his vantage point, a phrase which here means "chair perched on a sleigh dragged by sheep." "Is that true, Sonic?" he asked. "Are you keeping a secret from us?" Sonic looked up at the facilitator, and then at the bird cage, remembering how uncomfortable was to be locked up. "Yes," she admitted, and took the whisk out of her pocket as the islanders gasped. "Who gave this to you?" Mighty demanded. "Nobody gave it to her," Amy said quickly, not daring to look at Cosmo. "It's just something that survived the storm along with us."She reached into his pocket and brought out his commonplace book. "Each of us has something, Mighty . I have this notebook, and my brother has a ribbon he likes to use to tie up his hair."

There was another gasp from the assembled colonists, and Tails took the ribbon out of her pocket. "We didn't mean any harm," she said. "You were told of the island's customs," the facilitator said sternly, "and you chose to ignore them. We were very kind to you, giving you food and clothing and shelter, and even letting you keep your glasses. And in turn, you were unkind to us."

"They made a mistake," Cosmo said, swiftly gathering the forbidden items from the Hedges and giving Sonic a brief and grateful look. "We'll let the sheep take these things away, and forget all about it." "That seems fair," said Zazz. "I agree," Professor Finitevus said. "Me too," Chris said, who had picked up the harpoon gun.

Mighty frowned, but as more and more islanders expressed their

agreement, he succumbed to peer pressure and gave the orphans a small smile. "I suppose they can stay," he said, "if they don't rock the boat any further." He sighed, and then suddenly frowned down at a puddle. During the conversation, the Incredibly Deadly Viper had decided to take a brief swim, and was now staring up at the facilitator from a pool of seawater.

"What is that?" Mr. Ashura asked, with a frightened gasp. "It's a friendly snake we found," Cosmo said.

"Who told you it was friendly?" demanded Bark.

Cosmo shared a quick dismayed look with the Hedges. After all that had happened, they knew there was no hope of convincing Mighty that keeping the snake was a good idea. "Nobody told me," Cosmo said quietly. "It just seems friendly."

"It looks incredibly deadly," Perici said with a frown. "I say we dump it in the arboretum."

"We don't want a snake slithering around the arboretum," Mighty said, stroking his beard quickly. "It might hurt the sheep. I won't force you, but I think we should abandon it here with Count Eggman. Come along now, it's almost lunchtime. Hedges, please push that cube of books to the arboretum, and–"

"Our friend shouldn't be moved," Tails interrupted, with a gesture to Kit's unconscious figure. "We need to help her."

"I didn't realize there was a castaway up there," Mr. Ashura said, peering at the bare foot that was still hanging over the side of the cube. "Look, she has the same tattoo as the villain!"

"She's my girlfriend," said Eggman from the bird cage. "You should either punish us both or set us both free."

"She's not your girlfriend!" Amy cried. "She's our friend, and she's in trouble!"

"It seems that from the moment you joined us, the island is threatened with secrecy and treachery," Mighty said, with a weary sigh. "We've never had to punish anyone here before you arrived, and now there's another suspicious person lurking around the island."

"Dreyfuss?" Sonic said, which meant "What precisely are you accusing us of?" but the facilitator kept talking as if she had not said a word.

"I won't force you," Mighty said, "but if you want to be a part of the safe place we've constructed, I think you should abandon this Vanilla Snicket person, too, even though I've never heard of her."

"We won't abandon her," Tails said. "She needs our help."

"As I said, I won't force you," Mighty said, with one last tug on his beard. "Good-bye, Hedges. You can stay here on the coastal shelf with your friend and your books, if those things are so important to you." "But what will happen to them?" asked Zavok . "Decision Day is approaching, and the coastal shelf will flood with water."

"That's their problem," Mighty said, and gave the islanders an imperious–the word "imperious," as you probably know, means "mighty and a bit snobbish"–shrug. As his shoulders raised, a small object rolled out of the sleeve of his robe and landed with a small plop! in a puddle, narrowly missing the bird cage where Eggman was prisoner. The Hedges could not identify the object, but whatever it was, it was enough to make Mighty hurriedly clap his hands to distract anyone who might be wondering about it.

"Let's go!" he cried, and the sheep began to drag him back toward his tent. A few islanders gave the Hedges apologetic looks, as if they disagreed with Mighty 's suggestions but did not dare to resist the peer

pressure of their fellow colonists. Professor Finitevus and Chris, who had secrets of their own, looked particularly regretful, and Cosmo looked as if she might cry. She even started to say something to the Hedges, but Mrs. Caliban stepped forward and put her arm firmly around the girl's shoulders, and she merely gave the siblings a sad wave and walked away with her mother. The Hedges were too stunned for a moment to say anything. Contrary to expectations, Count Eggman had not fooled the inhabitants of this place so far from the world, and had instead been captured and punished. But still the Hedges were not safe, and certainly not happy to find themselves abandoned on the coastal shelf like so much detritus.

"This isn't fair," Amy said finally, but she said it so quietly that the departing islanders probably did not hear. Only her brothers heard her, and the snake the Hedges thought they would never see again, and of course Count Eggman, who was huddled in the large, ornate bird cage like an imprisoned beast, and who was the only person to answer him.

"Life isn't fair," he said, in his undisguised voice, and for once the Hedge orphans agreed with every word the man said.

R

 **Seven**

The predicament of the Hedge orphans as they sat abandoned on the coastal shelf, with Vanilla Snicket unconscious at the top of the cube of books above them, Count Eggman locked in a cage alongside them, and the Incredibly Deadly Viper curled at their feet, is an excellent opportunity to use the phrase "under a cloud." The three children were certainly under a cloud that afternoon, and not just because one lone was hanging over them in the sky like another castaway from the previous night's storm.

The expression "under a cloud" refers to people who are out of favor in a particular community, the way most classrooms have at least one child who is quite unpopular, or most secret organizations have at least one rhetorical analyst who is under suspicion. The island's only community had certainly placed Tails, Amy, and Sonic under a cloud, and even in the blazing afternoon sun the children felt the chill of the colony's suspicion and disapproval.

"I can't believe it," Tails said. "I can't believe we've been abandoned." "We thought we could cast away everything that happened to us before we arrived here," Amy said, "but this place is no safer than anywhere else we've been."

"But what to do?" Sonic asked.

Tails looked around the coastal shelf. "I suppose we can catch fish and harvest seaweed to eat," he said. "Our meals won't be much different

from those on the island."

"If fire," Sonic said thoughtfully, "then saltbake carp."

"We can't live here," Amy pointed out. "Decision Day is approaching, and the coastal shelf will be underwater. We either have to live on the island, or figure out a way to get back to where we came from."

"We'll never survive a journey at sea without a boat," Tails said, wishing he had his ribbon back so he could tie up her hair.

"Kit did," Sonic pointed out.

"The library must have served as a sort of raft," Amy said, running her hand along the books, "but she couldn't have come far on a boat of paper."

"I hope she met up with the Quagmires," Tails said.

"I hope she'll wake up and tell us what happened," Amy said. "Do you think she's seriously hurt?" Tails asked.

"There's no way to tell without a complete medical examination," Amy said, "but except for her ankle, she looks all right. She's probably just exhausted from the storm."

"Worried," Sonic said sadly, wishing there was a dry, warm blanket on the coastal shelf that the Hedges might have used to cover their unconscious friend.

"We can't just worry about Kit," Amy said. "We need to worry about ourselves."

"We have to think of a plan," Tails said wearily, and all three Hedges sighed. Even the Incredibly Deadly Viper seemed to sigh, and laid its head sympathetically on Sonic's foot. The Hedges stood on the coastal shelf and thought of all their previous predicaments, and all the plans they'd thought up to make themselves safe, only to end up in the midst of another unfortunate event. The cloud they were under seemed to get bigger and darker, and the children might have sat there

for quite some time had not the silence been broken by the voice of the man who was locked in a bird cage.

"I have a plan," Count Eggman said. "Let me out and I'll tell you what it's." Although Eggman was no longer using his high pitched voice, he still sounded muffled from within the cage, and when the Hedges turned to look at him it was as if he were in one of his disguises. The yellow and orange dress he had been wearing covered most of him up, and the children could not see the curve of his false pregnancy or the tattoo of an eye he had on his ankle. Only a few toes and fingers extended from between the bird cage's bars, and if the siblings peered closely they could see the wet curve of his mouth, and one blinking eye staring out from his captivity. "We're not letting you out," Tails said. "We have enough trouble without you wandering around loose."

"Suit yourself," Eggman said, and his dress rustled as he attempted to shrug. "But you'll drown as surely as I will when the coastal shelf floods. You can't build a boat, because the islanders have scavenged everything from the storm. And you can't live on the island, because the colonists have abandoned you. Even though we're shipwrecked, we're still in the same boat."

"We don't need your help, Eggman," Amy said. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here in the first place."

"Don't be so sure of that," Count Eggman said, and his mouth curled into a smile. "Everything eventually washes up on these shores, to be judged by that idiot in the robe. Do you think you're the first Hedges to find yourselves here?"

"What you mean?" Sonic demanded.

"Let me out," Eggman said, with a muffled chuckle, "and I'll tell you."

The Hedges looked at one another doubtfully. "You're trying to trick

us," Tails said.

"Of course I'm trying to trick you!" Eggman cried. "That's the way of the world, Hedges. Everybody runs around with their secrets and their schemes, trying to outwit everyone else. Mighty outwitted me, and put me in this cage. But I know how to outwit him and all his islander friends. If you let me out, I can be king of Eggman-Land, and you three can be my new henchfolk."

"We don't want to be your henchfolk," Amy said. "We just want to be safe."

"Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Eggman said. "Not with you around," Tails agreed.

"I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Eggman said. "Mighty is just as

treacherous as I am." "Fustianed," Sonic said.

"It's true!" Eggman insisted, although he probably did not understand what Sonic had said.

"Look at me! I'm stuffed into a cage for no good reason! Does that sound familiar, you stupid baby?"

"My brother is not a baby," Tails said firmly, "and Mighty is not treacherous. He may be misguided, but he's only trying to make the island a safe place."

"Is that so?" Eggman said, and the cage shook as he chuckled. "Why don't you reach into that pool, and see what Mighty dropped into the puddle?"

The Hedges looked at one another. They had almost forgotten about the object that had rolled out of the facilitator's sleeve. The three children stared down into the water, but it was the Incredibly Deadly Viper who wriggled into the murky depths of the puddle and came back with a small object in its mouth, which it deposited into Sonic's waiting

hand.

"Takk," Sonic said, thanking the snake by scratching it on the head.

"What is it?" Tails said, leaning in to look at what the viper had retrieved.

"It's an apple core," Amy said, and his sisters saw that it was so. Sonic was holding the core of an apple, which had been so thoroughly nibbled that scarcely anything remained.

"You see?" Eggman asked. "While the other islanders have to do all the work, Mighty sneaks off to the arboretum on his perfectly healthy feet and eats all the apples for himself! Your beloved facilitator not only has clay on his feet, he has feet of clay!"

The bird cage shook with laughter, and the Hedge orphans looked first at the apple core and then at one another. "Feet of clay" is an expression which refers to a person who appears to be honest and true, but who turns out to have a hidden weakness or a treacherous secret. If someone turns out to have feet of clay, your opinion of them may topple, just as a statue will topple if its base turns out to be badly constructed. The Hedges had thought Mighty was wrong to abandon them on the coastal shelf, of course, but they believed he had done it to keep the other islanders out of harm's way, just as Mrs. Caliban had not wanted Cosmo to upset herself by learning to read, and although they did not agree with much of the facilitator's philosophy, they at least respected the fact that he was trying to do the same thing the Hedges had been trying to do since that terrible day on the beach when they had first become orphans: to find or build a safe place to call home. But now, looking at the apple core, they realized what Count Eggman said was true. Mighty had feet of clay. He was lying about his injuries, and he was selfish about the apples in the arboretum, and he was

treacherous in pressuring everyone else on the island to do all the work. Gazing at the treacherous teeth marks the facilitator had left behind, they remembered his claim that he predicted the weather by magic, and the strange look in his eye when he insisted that the island had no library, and the Hedges wondered what other secrets the bearded facilitator was hiding. Tails, Amy, and Sonic sank to a mound of damp sand, as if they had feet of clay themselves, and leaned against the cube of books, wondering how they could have traveled so far from the world only to find the same dishonesty and treachery they always had.

"What is your plan?" Tails asked Count Eggman, after a long silence. "Let me out of this cage," Eggman said, "and I'll tell you."

"Tell us first," Amy said, "and perhaps we'll let you out."

"Let me out first," Eggman insisted.

"Tell us first," Sonic insisted, just as firmly. "I can argue with you all day," the villain growled. "Let me out, I tell you, or I'll take my plan to my grave!"

"We can think of a plan without you," Tails said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. "We've managed to escape plenty of difficult situations without your help."

"I have the only weapon that can threaten

Mighty and his supporters," Count Eggman said.

"The harpoon gun?" Amy said. "Chris took that away." "Not the harpoon gun, you scholarly moron," Count Eggman said

contemptuously, a word which here means "while trying to scratch his nose within the confines of the bird cage." "I'm talking about the Medusoid Mycelium!"

"Fungus!" Sonic cried. His siblings gasped, and even the Incredibly Deadly Viper looked astonished in its reptilian way as the villain told

them what you may have already guessed.

"I'm not really pregnant," he confessed with a caged grin. "The diving helmet containing the spores of the Medusoid Mycelium is hidden in this dress I'm wearing. If you let me out, I can threaten the entire colony with these deadly mushrooms. All those robed fools will be my slaves!" "What if they refuse?" Tails asked.

"Then I'll smash the helmet open," Eggman crowed, "and this whole island will be destroyed."

"But we'll be destroyed, too," Amy said. "The spores will infect us, the same as everyone else."

"Yomhashoah," Sonic said, which meant "Never again." The youngest Hedge had already been infected by the Medusoid Mycelium not long ago, and the children did not like to think about what would have happened if they hadn't found some wasabi to dilute the poison.

"We'll escape on the outrigger, you fool," Eggman said. "The island imbeciles have been building it all year. It's perfect for leaving this place behind and heading back to where the action is."

"Maybe they'll just let us leave," Tails said. "Cosmo said that anyone who wishes to leave the colony can climb aboard the outrigger on Decision Day."

"That little girl hasn't been here long," sneered Count Eggman, "so she still believes Mighty lets people do whatever they want. Don't be as dumb as she is, orphans."

Amy wished desperately that her commonplace book was open in her lap, so he could take notes, instead of on the far side of the island, with all of the other forbidden items. "How do you know so much about this place, Eggman?" he demanded. "You've only been here a few days, just like us!"

"Just like you," the villain repeated mockingly, and the cage shook with laughter again. "Do you think your pathetic history is the only story in the world? Do you think this island has just sat here in the sea, waiting for you to wash up on its shores? Do you think that I just sat in my home in the city, waiting for you miserable orphans to stumble into my path?" "Boswell," Sonic said. he meant something along the lines of, "Your life doesn't interest me," and the Incredibly Deadly Viper seemed to hiss in agreement.

"I could tell you stories, Hedges," Count Eggman said in a muffled wheeze. "I could tell you secrets about people and places that you'd never dream of. I could tell you about arguments and schisms that started before you were born. I could even tell you things about yourselves that you could never imagine. Just open the door of my cage, orphans, and I'll tell you things you could never discover on your own." The Hedges looked at one another and shuddered. Even in broad daylight, trapped in a cage, Count Eggman was still frightening. It was as if there was something villainous that could threaten them even if it were locked up tight, far away from the rest of the world. The three siblings had always been curious children. Tails had been eager to unlock the mysteries of the mechanical world with his inventing mind since the first pair of pliers had been placed in her crib. Amy had been keen to read everything she got her hands on since the alphabet was first printed on the wall of her bedroom by a visitor to the Hedge home. And Sonic was always exploring the universe through his mouth, first by biting anything that interested her, and later by tasting food carefully in order to improve her cooking skills. Curiosity was one of the Hedges' most important customs, and one might think that they

would be very curious indeed to hear more about the mysteries the villain had mentioned. But there was something very, very sinister about Count Eggman's words. Listening to him talk felt like standing on the edge of a deep well, or walking on a high cliff in the dead of night, or listening to a strange rustling sound outside your bedroom window, knowing that at any moment something dangerous and enormous could happen. It made the Hedges think of that terrible question mark on the radar screen of the Queequeg–a secret so gigantic and important that it could not fit in their hearts or minds, something that had been hidden their entire lives and might destroy their entire lives once it was revealed. It was not a secret the Hedge orphans wanted to hear, from Count Eggman or from anyone else, and although it felt like a secret that could not be avoided, the children wanted to avoid it anyway, and without another word to the man in the cage the three siblings stood up and walked around the cube of books until they were at the far end, where Eggman and his bird cage could not be seen. Then, in silence, the three siblings sat back down, leaned against the strange raft, and stared out at the flat horizon of the sea, trying not to think about what Eggman had said. Occasionally they took sips of coconut cordial from the seashells that hung from their waists, hoping that the strong, strange drink would distract them from the strong, strange thoughts in their heads. All afternoon, until the sun set on the rippling horizon of the sea, the Hedge orphans sat and sipped, and wondered if they dared learn what lay at the heart of their sad lives, when every secret, every mystery, and every unfortunate event had been peeled away.

R

 **Eight**

Thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, either while skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass doors of a museum. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your walk, and as you think about more and more things you are liable to feel heavier and heavier, until you are so burdened you cannot take any further steps, and can only sit and stare at the gentle movements of the ocean waves or security guards, thinking too hard about too many things to do anything else. As the sun set, casting long shadows on the coastal shelf, the Hedge orphans felt so heavy from their thoughts they could scarcely move.

They thought about the island, and the terrible storm that had brought them there, and the boat that had taken them through the storm, and their own treachery at the Hotel Denouement that had led them to escape in the boat with Count Eggman, who had stopped calling out to the Hedges and was now snoring loudly in the bird cage. They thought about the colony, and the cloud the islanders had put them under, and the peer pressure that had led the islanders to decide to abandon them, and the facilitator who started the peer pressure, and the secret apple core of the facilitator that seemed no different than the secret items that had gotten the Hedges in trouble in the first place. They thought

about Vanilla Snicket, and the storm that had left her unconscious on top of the strange library raft, and their friends the Quagmire triplets, who may also have been caught in the same stormy sea, and Captain Charmy Widdershins's submarine that lay under the sea, and the mysterious schism that lay under everything like an enormous question mark. And the Hedges thought, as they did every time they saw the sky grow dark, of their parents. If you've ever lost someone, then you know that sometimes when you think of them you try to imagine where they might be, and the Hedges thought of how far away their mother and father seemed, while all the wickedness in the world felt so close, locked in a cage just a few feet from where the children sat. Tails thought, and Amy thought, and Sonic thought, and as the afternoon drew to evening they felt so burdened by their thoughts that they felt they could scarcely hold another thought, and yet as the last rays of the sun disappeared on the horizon they found something else to think about, for in the darkness they heard a familiar voice, and they had to think of what to do.

"Where am I?" asked Vanilla Snicket, and the children heard her body rustle on the top layer of books over the snoring.

" Vanilla!" Tails said, standing up quickly. "You're awake!"

"It's the Hedges," Amy said. "Hedges?" Vanilla repeated faintly. "Is it really you?"

"Anais," Sonic said, which meant "In the flesh."

"Where are we?" Vanilla said. The Hedges were silent for a moment, and realized for the first time that they did not even know the name of the place where they were. "We're on a coastal shelf," Tails said finally, although he decided not to add that they had been abandoned there.

"There's an island nearby," Amy said. The middle Hedge did not explain that they were not welcome to set foot on it.

"Safe," Sonic said, but she did not mention that Decision Day was approaching, and that soon the entire area would be flooded with seawater. Without discussing the matter, the Hedges decided not to tell Vanilla the whole story, not yet.

"Of course," Vanilla murmured. "I should have known I'd be here. Eventually, everything washes up on these shores."

"Have you been here before?" Tails asked. "No," Vanilla said, "but I've heard about this place. My associates have told me stories of its mechanical wonders, its enormous library, and the gourmet meals the islanders prepare. Why, the day before I met you, Hedges, I shared Turkish coffee with an associate who was saying that he'd never had better Oysters Rockefeller than during his time on the island. You must be having a wonderful time here."

"Janiceps," Sonic said, restating an earlier opinion.

"I think this place has changed since your associate was here," said Amy.

"That's probably true," Vanilla said thoughtfully. "Thursday did say that the colony had suffered a schism, just as V.F.D. did."

"Another schism?" Tails asked.

"Countless schisms have divided the world over the years," Vanilla replied in the darkness. "Do you think the history of V.F.D. is the only story in the world? But let's not talk of the past, Hedges. Tell me how you made your way to these shores."

"The same way you did," Tails said. "We were castaways. The only way we could leave the Hotel Denouement was by boat."

"I knew you ran into danger there," Vanilla said. "We were watching the skies. We saw the smoke and we knew you were signaling us that it wasn't safe to join you. Thank you, Hedges. I knew you wouldn't fail us. Tell me, is Dewey with you?"

Vanilla's words were almost more than the Hedges could stand. The smoke she had seen, of course, was from the fire the children had set in the hotel's laundry room, which had quickly spread to the entire building, interrupting Count Eggman's trial and endangering the lives of all the people inside, villains and volunteers alike. And Dewey, I'm sad to remind you, was not with the Hedges, but lying dead at the bottom of a pond, still clutching the harpoon that the three siblings had fired into his heart. But Tails, Amy, and Sonic could not bring themselves to tell Vanilla the whole story, not now. They could not bear to tell her what had happened to Dewey, and to all the other noble people they had encountered, not yet. Not now, not yet, and perhaps not ever.

"No," Tails said. "Dewey isn't here."

"Count Eggman is with us," Amy said, "but he's locked up."

"Viper," Sonic added.

"Oh, I'm glad Ink is safe," Kit said, and the Hedges thought they could almost hear her smile. "That's my special nickname for the Incredibly Deadly Viper. Ink kept me good company on this raft after we were separated from the others."

"The Quagmires?" Amy asked. "You found them?"

"Yes," Vanilla said, and coughed a bit. "But they're not here."

"Maybe they'll wash up here, too," Tails

said.

"Maybe," Vanilla said uncertainly. "And maybe Dewey will join us, too. We need as many associates as we can if we're going to return to the world and make sure that justice is served. But first, let's find this colony I've

heard so much about. I need a shower and a hot meal, and then I want to hear the whole story of what happened to you." She started to lower herself down from the raft, but then stopped with a cry of pain.

"You shouldn't move," Tails said quickly, glad for an excuse to keep Vanilla on the coastal shelf. "Your foot's been injured."

"Both my feet have been injured," Vanilla corrected ruefully, lying back down on the raft. "The telegram device fell on my legs when the submarine was attacked. I need your help, Hedges. I need to be someplace safe." "We'll do everything we can," Amy said. "Maybe help is on the way," Vanilla said. "I can see someone coming."

The Hedges turned to look, and in the dark they saw a very tiny, very bright light, skittering toward them from the west. At first the light looked like nothing more than a firefly, darting here and there on the coastal shelf, but gradually the children could see it was a flashlight, around which several figures in white robes huddled, walking carefully among the puddles and debris. The shine of the flashlight reminded Amy of all of the nights she spent reading under the covers in the Hedge mansion, while outside the night made mysterious noises her parents always insisted were nothing more than the wind, even on windless evenings. Some mornings, her father would come into Amy's room to wake her up and find her asleep, still clutching her flashlight in one hand and her book in the other, and as the flashlight

drew closer and closer, the middle Hedge could not help but think that it was her father, walking across the coastal shelf to come to his children's aid after all this time. But of course it was not the Hedges' father. The figures arrived at the cube of books, and the children could see the faces of two islanders: Boomer, who was holding the flashlight, and

Perici, who was carrying a large, covered basket.

"Good evening, Hedges," Boomer said. In the dim light of the flashlight she looked even younger than she was.

"We brought you some supper," Perici said, and held out the basket to the children. "We were concerned that you might be quite hungry out here."

"We are," Tails admitted. The Hedges, of course, wished that the islanders had expressed their concern in front of Mighty and the others, when the colony was deciding to abandon the children on the coastal shelf, but as Boomer opened the basket and the children smelled the island's customary dinner of onion soup, the children did not want to look a gift horse in the mouth, a phrase which here means "turn down an offer of a hot meal, no matter how disappointed they were in the person who was offering it."

"Is there enough for our friend?" Amy asked. "She's regained consciousness."

"I'm glad to hear it," Boomer said. "There's enough food for everyone." "As long as you keep the secret of our coming here," Perici said. "Mighty might not think it was proper."

"I'm surprised he doesn't forbid the use of flashlights," Tails said, as Boomer handed her a coconut shell full of steaming soup.

"Mighty doesn't forbid anything," Boomer said. "He'd never force me to throw this flashlight away. However, he did suggest that I let the sheep take it to the arboretum. Instead I slipped it into my robe, as a secret, and Madame Lumina has been secretly supplying me with batteries in exchange for my secretly teaching her how to yodel, which Mighty says might frighten the other islanders."

"And Mrs. Caliban secretly slipped me this picnic basket," Perici said, "in exchange for my secretly teaching her the backstroke, which Mighty says is not the customary way to swim."

"Mrs. Caliban?" said Vanilla, in the darkness. "Miranda Caliban is here?" "Yes," Boomer said. "Do you know her?"

"I know her husband," Vanilla said. "He and I stood together in a time of

great struggle, and we're still very good friends."

"Your friend must be a little confused after her difficult journey," Perici said to the Hedges, standing on tiptoes so she could hand Kit some soup. "Mrs. Caliban's husband perished many years ago in the storm that brought her here."

"That's impossible," Kit said, reaching down to take the bowl from the young girl. "I just had Turkish coffee with him."

"Mrs. Caliban is not the sort to keep secrets," Boomer said. "That's why she lives on the island. It's a safe place, far from the treachery of the world." "Enigmorama," Sonic said, putting her coconut shell of soup on the ground so she could share it with the Incredibly Deadly Viper.

"My sister means that it seems this island has plenty of secrets," Amy said, thinking wistfully of his commonplace book and all the secrets its pages contained.

"I'm afraid we have one more secret to discuss," Perici said. "Turn the flashlight off, Boomer. We don't want to be seen from the island."

Boomer nodded, and turned the flashlight off. The Hedges had one last glimpse of each other before the darkness engulfed them, and for a moment everyone stood in silence, as if afraid to speak.

Many, many years ago, when even the greatgreat-grandparents of the oldest person you know were not even day-old infants, and when the city where the Hedges were born was nothing more than a handful of dirt

huts, and the Hotel Denouement nothing but an architectural sketch, and the faraway island had a name, and was not considered very faraway at all, there was a group of people known as the Cimmerians. They were a nomadic people, which meant that they traveled constantly, and they often traveled at night, when the sun would not give them sunburn and when the coastal shelves in the area in which they lived were not flooded with water. Because they traveled in shadows, few people ever got a good look at the Cimmerians, and they were considered sneaky and mysterious people, and to this day things done in the dark tend to have a somewhat sinister reputation. A man digging a hole in his backyard during the afternoon, for instance, looks like a gardener, but a man digging a hole at night looks like he's burying some terrible secret, and a woman who gazes out of her window in the daytime appears to be enjoying the view, but looks more like a spy if she waits until nightfall.

The nighttime digger may actually be planting a tree to surprise his niece while the niece giggles at him from the window, and the morning window watcher may actually be planning to blackmail the so-called gardener as he buries the evidence of his vicious crimes, but thanks to the Cimmerians, the darkness makes even the most innocent of activities seem suspicious, and so in the darkness of the coastal shelf, the Hedges suspected that the question Boomer asked was a sinister one, even though it could have been something one of their teachers might have asked in the classroom.

"Do you know the meaning of the word mutiny'?" she asked, in a calm, quiet voice.

Tails and Sonic knew that Amy would answer, although they were pretty sure themselves what the word meant. "A mutiny is when

a group of people take action against a leader."

"Yes," Boomer said. "Professor Finitevus taught me the word."

"We are here to tell you that a mutiny will take place at breakfast," said Perici. "More and more colonists are getting sick and tired of the way things are going on the island, and Mighty is the root of the trouble." "Tuber?" Sonic asked.

'"Root of the trouble' means 'the cause of the islanders' problems,'" Amy explained.

"Exactly," Perici said, "and when Decision Day arrives we will finally have the opportunity to get rid of him."

"Rid of him?" Tails repeated, the phrase sounding sinister in the dark. "We're going to force him aboard the outrigger right after breakfast," Perici said, "and push him out to sea as the coastal shelf floods."

"A man traveling the ocean alone is unlikely to survive," Amy said. "He won't be alone," Boomer said. "A number

of islanders support Mighty . If necessary, we'll force them to leave the island as well."

"How many?" Sonic asked.

"It's hard to know who supports Mighty and who doesn't," Perici said, and the children heard the old woman sip from her seashell. "You've seen how he acts. He says he doesn't force anyone, but everyone ends up agreeing with him anyway. But no longer. At breakfast we'll find out who supports him and who doesn't."

"Perici says we'll fight all day and all night if we have to," Boomer said. "Everyone will have to choose sides."

The children heard an enormous, sad sigh from the top of the raft of books. "A schism," Vanilla said quietly.

"Gesundheit," Perici said. "That's why we've come to you, Hedges. We need all the help we can get."

"After the way Mighty abandoned you, we figured you'd be on our side," Boomer said. "Don't you agree he's the root of the trouble?"

The Hedges stood together in the silence, thinking about Mighty and all they knew about him. They thought of the way he had taken them in so kindly upon their arrival on the island, but also how quickly he had abandoned them on the coastal shelf. They thought about how eager he had been to keep the Hedges safe, but also how eager he was to lock Count Eggman in a bird cage. They thought about his dishonesty about his injured feet, and about his secret apple eating, but as the children thought of all they knew about the facilitator, they also thought about how much they didn't know, and after hearing both Count Eggman and Vanilla Snicket talk about the history of the island, the Hedge orphans realized they did not know the whole story. The children might agree that Mighty was the root of the trouble, but they could not be sure.

"I don't know," Tails said.

"You don't know?" Perici repeated incredulously. "We brought you supper, and Mighty left you out here to starve, and you don't know whose side you're on?"

"We trusted you when you said Count Eggman was a terrible person," Boomer said. "Why can't you trust us, Hedges?"

"Forcing Mighty to leave the island seems a bit drastic," Amy said. "It's a bit drastic to put a man in a cage," Perici pointed out, "but I didn't hear you complaining then."

"Quid pro quo?" Sonic asked.

"If we help you," Tails translated, "will you help Vanilla?" "Our friend is injured," Amy said. "Injured and pregnant."

"And distraught," Vanilla added weakly, from the top of the raft.

"If you help us in our plan to defeat Mighty ," Boomer promised, "we'll get her to a safe place."

"And if not?" Sonic asked.

"We won't force you, Hedges," Perici said, sounding like the facilitator she wanted to defeat, "but Decision Day is approaching, and the coastal shelf will flood. You need to make a choice."

The Hedges did not say anything, and for a moment everyone stood in a silence broken only by Count Eggman's snores. Tails, Amy, and Sonic were not interested in being part of a schism, after witnessing all of the misery that followed the schism of V.F.D., but they did not see a way to avoid it. Boomer had said that they needed to make a choice, but choosing between living alone on a coastal shelf, endangering themselves and their injured friend, and participating in the island's mutinous plan, did not feel like much of a choice at all, and they wondered how many other people had felt this way, during the countless schisms that had divided the world over the years.

"We'll help you," Tails said finally. "What do you want us to do?"

"We need you to sneak into the arboretum," Boomer said. "You mentioned your mechanical abilities, Tails, and Amy seems very well-read. All of the forbidden items we've scavenged over the years should come in very handy indeed."

"Even the baby should be able to cook something up," Perici said. "But what do you mean?" Amy asked. "What should we do with all the detritus?"

"We need weapons, of course," Perici said in the darkness.

"We hope to force Mighty off the island peacefully," Boomer said quickly, "but Perici says we'll need weapons, just in case. Mighty will notice if we go to the far side of the island, but you three should be able to sneak over the brae, find or build some weapons in the arboretum, and bring them to us here before breakfast so we can begin the mutiny."

"Absolutely not!" cried Vanilla, from the top of the raft. "I won't hear of you putting your talents to such nefarious use, Hedges. I'm sure the island can solve its difficulties without resorting to violence."

"Did you solve your difficulties without resorting to violence?" Perici asked sharply. "Is that how you survived the great struggle you mentioned, and ended up shipwrecked on a raft of books?"

"My history is not important," Vanilla replied. "I'm worried about the Hedges."

"And we're worried about you, Vanilla," Tails said. "We need as many associates as we can if we're going to return to the world and make sure that justice is served."

"You need to be in a safe place to recuperate from your injury," Amy said.

"And baby," said Sonic.

"That's no reason to engage in treachery," Vanilla said, but she did not sound so sure. Her voice was weak and faint, and the children heard the books rustling as she moved her injured feet uncomfortably.

"Please help us," Boomer said, "and we'll help your friend."

"There must be a weapon that can threaten Mighty and his supporters," Perici said, and now she did not sound like Mighty . The Hedges had heard almost the exact same words from the imprisoned mouth of Count Eggman, and they shuddered to think of the weapon he was hiding in the bird cage.

Tails put down his empty soup bowl, and picked up his baby brother, while Amy took the flashlight from the old woman. "We'll be back as soon as we can, Vanilla," the eldest Hedge promised. "Wish us luck." The raft trembled as Vanilla uttered a long, sad sigh. "Good luck," she said

finally. "I wish things were different, Hedges."

"So do we," Amy replied, and the three children followed the narrow beam of the flashlight back toward the colony that had abandoned them. Their footsteps made small splashes on the coastal shelf, and the Hedges heard the quiet slither of the Incredibly Deadly Viper, loyally following them on their errand. There was no sign of a moon, and the stars were covered in clouds that remained from the passing storm, or perhaps were heralding a new one, so the entire world seemed to vanish outside the secret flashlight's forbidden light. With each damp and uncertain step, the children felt heavier, as if their thoughts were stones that they had to carry to the arboretum, where all the forbidden items lay waiting for them. They thought about the islanders, and the mutinous schism that would soon divide the colony in two. They thought about Mighty , and wondered whether his secrets and deceptions meant that he deserved to be at sea. And they thought about the Medusoid Mycelium, fermenting in the helmet in Eggman's grasp, and wondered if the islanders would discover that weapon before the Hedges built another. The children traveled in the dark, just as so many other people had done before them, from the nomadic travels of the Cimmerians to the desperate voyages of the Quagmire triplets, who at that very moment were in circumstances just as dark although quite a bit damper than the Hedges', and as the children drew closer and closer to the island that had abandoned them, their thoughts made them heavier and heavier, and the Hedge orphans wished things were very different indeed.

R

 **Nine**

The phrase "in the dark," as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it's quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it's likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and

you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

The Hedge orphans, of course, had been in the dark many times before they made their way in the dark over the brae to the far side of the island, where the arboretum guarded its many, many secrets. There was the darkness of Count Eggman's gloomy house, and the darkness of the movie theater where Uncle Knuckles had taken them to see a wonderful film called Zombies in the Snow. There were the dark clouds of Hurricane Herman as it roared across Lake Lachrymose, and the darkness of the Finite Forest as a train had taken the children to work at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. There were the dark nights the children spent at Prufrock Preparatory School, participating in Special Orphan Running Exercises, and the dark climbs up the elevator shaft of 667 Dark Avenue. There was the dark jail cell in which the children spent some time while living in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and the dark trunk of Count Eggman's car, which had carried them from Heim-lich Hospital to the hinterlands, where the dark tents of the Caligari Carnival awaited them. There was the dark pit they had built high in the Mortmain Mountains, and the dark hatch they had climbed through in order to board the Queequeg, and the dark lobby of the Hotel Denouement, where they thought their dark days might be over. There were the dark eyes of Count Eggman and his associates, and the dark notebooks of the Quagmire triplets, and all of the dark passageways the children had discovered, that led to the Hedge mansion, and out of the Library of Records, and up to the

V.F.D. Headquarters, and to the dark, dark depths of the sea, and all the dark passageways they hadn't discovered, where other people traveled on equally desperate errands. But most of all, the Hedge orphans had been in the dark about their own sad history. They did not understand how Count Eggman had entered their lives, or how he had managed to remain there, hatching scheme after scheme without anyone stopping him. They did not understand V.F.D., even when they had joined the organization themselves, or how the organization, with all of its codes, errands, and volunteers, had failed to defeat the wicked people who seemed to triumph again and again, leaving each safe place in ruins. And they did not understand how they could lose their parents and their home in a fire, and how this enormous injustice, this bad beginning to their sad history, was followed only by another injustice, and another, and another. The Hedge orphans did not understand how injustice and treachery could prosper, even this far from their home, on an island in the middle of a vast sea, and that happiness and innocence the happiness and innocence of that day on Briny Beach, before Mr. Silver Poe brought them the dreadful news–could always be so far out of reach. The Hedges were in the dark about the mystery of their own lives, which is why it was such a profound shock to think at last that these mysteries might be solved. The Hedge orphans blinked in the rising sun, and gazed at the expanse of the arboretum, and wondered if they might not be in the dark any longer.

"Library" is another word that can mean two different things, which means even in a library you cannot be safe from the confusion and mystery of the world. The most common use of the word "library," of course, refers to a collection of books or documents, such as the libraries the Hedges had encountered during their travels and troubles, from

the legal library of Justice Tikal Strauss to the Hotel Denouement, which was itself an enormous library–with, it turned out, another library hidden nearby. But the word "library" can also refer to a mass of knowledge or a source of learning, just as Amy Hedge is something of a library with the mass of knowledge stored in her brain, or Vanilla Snicket, who was a source of learning for the Hedges as she told them about V.F.D. and its noble errands. So when I write that the Hedge orphans had found themselves in the largest library they had ever seen, it's that definition of the word I am using, because the arboretum was an enormous mass of knowledge, and a source of learning, even without a single scrap of paper in sight. The items that had washed up on the shores of the island over the years could answer any question the Hedges had, and thousands more questions they'd never thought of. Stretched out as far as the eye could see were piles of objects, heaps of items, towers of evidence, bales of materials, clusters of details, stacks of substances, hordes of pieces, arrays of articles, constellations of details, galaxies of stuff, and universes of things–an accumulation, an aggregation, a compilation, a concentration, a crowd, a herd, a flock, and a register of seemingly everything on Earth. There was everything the alphabet could hold–automobiles and alarm clocks, bandages and beads, cables and computers, discs and dominos, earmuffs and emery boards, fiddles and fabric, garrotes and glassware, hang gliders and husks, icons and instruments, jewelry and jogging shoes, kites and kernels, levers and lawn chairs, machines and magnets, noisemakers and needles, orthodontics and ottomans, pull toys and pillars, quarters and quivers, race cars and rucksacks, saws and skulls, teaspoons and ties, urns and ukuleles, valentines and vines, wigs

and wires, xeranthemums and xylorimbas, yachts and yokes, zithers and zabras, a word which here means "small boats usually used off the coasts of Spain and Portugal"–as well as everything that could hold the alphabet, from a cardboard box perfect for storing twenty-six wooden blocks, to a chalkboard perfect for writing twenty-six letters. There were any number of things, from a single motorcycle to countless chopsticks, and things with every number on them, from license plates to calculators. There were objects from every climate, from snowshoes to ceiling fans; and for every occasion, from menorahs to soccer balls; and there were things you could use on certain occasions in certain climates, such as a waterproof fondue set. There were inserts and outhouses, overpasses and underclothes, upholstery and down comforters, hotplates and cold creams and cradles and coffins, hopelessly destroyed, somewhat damaged, in slight disrepair, and brand-new. There were objects the Hedges recognized, including a triangular picture frame and a brass lamp in the shape of a fish, and there were objects the Hedges had never seen before, including the skeleton of an elephant and a glittering green mask one might wear as part of a dragonfly costume, and there were objects the Hedges did not know if they had seen before, such as a wooden rocking horse and a piece of rubber that looked like a fan belt. There were items that seemed to be part of the Hedges' story, such as a plastic replica of a clown and a broken telegraph pole, and there were items that seemed part of some other story, such as a carving of a black bird and a gem that shone like an Indian moon, and all the items, and all their stories, were scattered across the landscape in such a way that the Hedge orphans thought that the arboretum had either been organized according to principles so mysterious they could not be discovered, or it had not been organized at

all. In short, the Hedge orphans had found themselves in the largest library they had ever seen, but they did not know where to begin their research. The children stood in awed silence and surveyed the endless landscape of objects and stories, and then looked up at the largest object of all, which towered over the arboretum and covered it in shade. It was the apple tree, with a trunk as enormous as a mansion and branches as long as a city street, which sheltered the library from the frequent storms and offered its bitter apples to anyone who dared to pick one.

"Words fail me," Sonic said in a hushed whisper.

"Me, too," Amy agreed. "I can't believe what we're seeing. The islanders told us that everything eventually washes up on these shores, but I never imagined the arboretum would hold so many things."

Tails picked up an item that lay at his feet–a pink ribbon decorated with plastic daisies–and began to wind it around his bangs. To those who hadn't been around Tails long, it would have seemed unusual as he was a boy, but those who knew him well knew that when he tied his bangs up in a ribbon to keep it out of his eyes, it meant that the gears and levers of his inventing brain were whirring at top speed. "Think of what I could build here," she said. "I could build splints for Vanilla's feet, a boat to take us off the island, a filtration system so we could drink fresh water..." Her voice trailed off, and she stared up at the branches of the tree. "I could invent anything and everything."

Amy picked up the object at her feet–a cape made of scarlet silk–and held it in her hands. "There must be countless secrets in a place like this," he said. "Even without a book, I could investigate anything and everything."

Sonic looked around him. "Service a la Russe," she said, which meant something like, "Even with the simplest of ingredients, I could prepare

an extremely elaborate meal."

"I don't know where to begin," Tails said, running a hand along a pile of broken white wood that looked like it had once been part of a gazebo. "We begin with weapons," Amy said grimly. "That's why we're here.

Perici and Boomer are waiting for us to help them mutiny against Mighty."

The oldest Hedge shook her head. "It doesn't seem right," she said. "We can't use a place like this to start a schism."

"Maybe a schism is necessary," Amy said. "There are millions of items here that could help the colony, but thanks to Mighty, they've all been abandoned here."

"No one forced anyone to abandon anything," Tails said. "Peer pressure," Sonic pointed out.

"We can try a little peer pressure of our own," Tails said firmly. "We've

defeated worse people than Mighty with far fewer materials."

"But do we really want to defeat Mighty?" Amy asked. "He's made the island a safe place, even if it's a little boring, and he kept Count Eggman away, even if he is a little cruel. He has feet of clay, but I'm not sure he's the root of the problem."

"What is the root of the problem?" Tails asked.

"Ink," Sonic said, but when his siblings turned to give him a quizzical look, they saw that the youngest Hedge was not answering their question, but pointing at the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who was slithering hurriedly away from the children with its eyes darting this way and that and its tongue extended to sniff the air.

"It appears to know where it's going," Tails said.

"Maybe it's been here before," Amy said. "Taylit," Sonic said, which meant "Let's follow the reptile and see where it heads." Without waiting

to see whether his siblings agreed, he hurried after the snake, and Tails and Amy hurried after him. The viper's path was as curved and twisted as the snake itself, and the Hedges found themselves scrambling over all sorts of discarded items, from a cardboard box, soaked through from the storm, that was full of something white and lacy, to a painted backdrop of a sunset, such as might be used in the performance of an opera. The children could tell that the path had been traveled before, as the ground was covered in footprints. The snake was slithering so quickly that the Hedges could not keep up, but they could follow the footprints, which were dusted around the edges in white powder. It was dried clay, of course, and in moments the children reached the end of the path, following in Mighty 's footsteps, and they arrived at the base of the apple tree just in time to see the tail of the snake disappear into a gap in the tree's roots. If you've ever stood at the base of an old tree, then you know the roots are often close to the surface of the earth, and the curved angles of the roots can create a hollow space in the tree's trunk. It was into this hollow space that the Incredibly Deadly Viper disappeared, and after the tiniest of pauses, it was into this space that the Hedge orphans followed, wondering what secrets they would find at the root of the tree that sheltered such a mysterious place. First Tails, and then Amy, and then Sonic stepped down through the gap into the secret space. It was dark underneath the roots of the tree, and for a moment the Hedges tried to adjust to the gloom and figure out what this place was, but then the middle Hedge remembered the flashlight, and turned it on so she and her siblings would no longer be in the dark in the dark.

The Hedge orphans were standing in a space much bigger than they

would have imagined, and much better furnished. Along one wall was a large stone bench lined with simple, clean tools, including several sharp-looking razorblades, a glass pot of paste, and several wooden brushes with narrow, fine tips. Next to the wall was an enormous bookcase, which was stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes, as well as assorted documents that were stacked, rolled, and stapled with extreme care. The shelves of the bookcase stretched away from the children past the beam of the flashlight and disappeared into the darkness, so there was no way of knowing how long the bookcase was, or the number of books and documents it contained. Opposite the bookcase stretched an elaborate kitchen, with a huge potbellied stove, several porcelain sinks, and a tall, humming refrigerator, as well as a square wooden table covered in appliances ranging from a blender to a

fondue set. Over the table hung a rack from which dangled all manner of kitchen utensils and pots, as well as sprigs of dried herbs, a variety of whole dried fish, and even a few cured meats, such as salami and prosciutto, an Italian ham that the Hedge orphans had once enjoyed at a Sicilian picnic the family had attended. Nailed to the wall was an impressive spice rack filled with jars of herbs and bottles of condiments, and a cupboard with glass doors through which the children could see piles of plates, bowls, and mugs. Finally, in the center of this enormous space were two large, comfortable reading chairs, one with a gigantic book on the seat, much taller than an atlas and much thicker than even an unabridged dictionary, and the other just waiting for someone to sit down. Lastly, there was a curious device made of brass that looked like a large tube with a pair of binoculars at the bottom, which rose up into the thick canopy of roots that formed the ceiling. As the Incredibly Deadly Viper hissed proudly, the way a dog might wag its tail after performing a

difficult trick, the three children stared around the room, each concentrating on their area of expertise, a phrase which here means "the part of the room in which each Hedge would most like to spend time."

Tails walked over to the brass device and peered into the eyes of the binoculars. "I can see the ocean," he said in surprise. "This is an enormous periscope, much bigger than the one in the Queequeg. It must run all the way up the trunk of the tree and jut out over the highest branch."

"But why would you want to look at the ocean from here?" Amy asked. "From this height," Tails explained, "you could see any storm clouds that might be heading this way. This is how Mighty predicts the weather–not by magic, but with scientific equipment."

"And these tools are used to repair books," Amy said. "Of course books wash up on the island–everything does, eventually. But the pages and bindings of the books are often damaged by the storm that brought them, so Mighty repairs them and shelves them here." she picked up a dark blue notebook from the bench and held it up. "It's my commonplace book," she said. "He must have been making sure none of the pages were wet."

Sonic picked up a familiar object from the wooden table–his whisk–and held it to her nose. "Fritters," he said. "With cinnamon."

"Mighty walks to the arboretum to watch for storms, read books, and cook spiced food," Tails said. "Why would he pretend to be an injured facilitator who predicts the weather through magic, claims that the island has no library, and prefers bland meals?"

Amy walked to the two reading chairs and lifted the heavy, thick book.

"Maybe this will tell us," she said, and shone the flashlight so her brothers could see the long, somewhat wordy title printed on the front cover.

"What does it mean?" Tails asked. "That title could mean anything." Amy noticed a thin piece of black cloth stuck in the book to mark someone's place, and opened the book to that page. The bookmark was Tails' hair ribbon, which the eldest Hedge quickly grabbed, as the pink ribbon with plastic daisies was not to his taste. "I think it's a history of the island," Amy said, "written like a diary. Look, here's what the most recent entry says: _'Yet another figure from the shadowy past has washed ashore–Vanilla Snicket (see page 667). Convinced the others to abandon her, I may soon regret this. And the Hedges, who have already rocked the boat far too much, I fear. Also managed to have Count Eggman locked in a cage._

 _Note to self: Why won't anyone Call me Might?'_ "

"Mighty said he'd never heard of Vanilla Snicket," Tails said, "but here he writes that she's a figure from the shadowy past."

"Six six seven," Sonic said, and Amy nodded. Handing the flashlight to his older sister, he quickly turned the pages of the book, flipping back in history until he reached the page Mighty had mentioned.

" _'Inky has learned to lasso sheep_ ,'" Amy read, '" _Rosemary is still in pain, and last night's storm washed up a postcard from Vanilla Snicket, addressed to Blaze Caliban. Vanilla, of course, is the sister of..._ '"

The middle Hedge's voice trailed off, and his sisters stared at him curiously. "What's wrong, Amy?" Tails asked. "That entry doesn't seem particularly mysterious."

"It's not the entry," Amy said, so quietly that Tails and Sonic could scarcely hear her. "It's the handwriting."

"Familia?" Sonic asked, and all three Hedges stepped as close as they could to one another. In silence, the children gathered around the

beam of the flashlight, as if it were a warm campfire on a freezing night, and gazed down at the pages of the oddly titled book.

Even the Incredibly Deadly Viper crawled up to perch on Sonic's shoulders, as if it were as curious as the Hedge orphans to know who had written those words so long ago.

"Yes, Hedges," said a voice from the far end of the room. "That's your mother's handwriting."

R

 **Ten**

Mighty stepped out of the darkness, running a hand along the shelves of the bookcase, and walked slowly toward the Hedge orphans. In the dim glow of the flashlight, the children could not tell if the facilitator was smiling or frowning through his wild, woolly beard, and Tails was reminded of something he'd almost entirely forgotten. A long time ago, before Sonic was born, Tails and Amy had begun an argument at breakfast over whose turn it was to take out the garbage. It was a silly matter, but one of those occasions when the people arguing are having too much fun to stop, and all day, the two siblings had wandered around the house, doing their assigned chores and scarcely speaking to each other. Finally, after a long, silent meal, during which their parents tried to get them to reconcile–a word which here means "admit that it didn't matter in the slightest whose turn it was, and that the only important thing was to get the garbage out of the kitchen before the smell spread to the entire mansion"–Tails and Amy were sent up to bed without dessert or even five minutes of reading. Suddenly, just as he was dropping off to sleep, Tails had an idea for an invention that meant no one would ever have to take out the garbage, and he turned on a light and began to sketch out her idea on a pad of paper. he became so interested in his invention that he did not listen for footsteps in the hallway outside, and so when his mother opened the door, he did not

have time to turn out the light and pretend to be asleep. Tails stared at his mother, and his mother stared back, and in the dim light the eldest Hedge could not see if his mother was smiling or frowning–if she was angry at Tails for staying up past his bedtime, or if she didn't mind after all. But then finally, Tails saw that his mother was carrying a cup of hot tea. "Here you go, dear," she said gently. "I know how star anise tea helps you think." Tails took the steaming cup from his mother, and in that instant he suddenly realized that it had been his turn to take out the garbage after all.

Mighty did not offer the Hedge orphans any tea, and when he flicked a switch on the wall, and lit up the secret space underneath the apple tree with electric lights, the children could see that he was neither smiling nor frowning, but exhibiting a strange combination of the two, as if he were as nervous about the Hedges as they were about him. "I knew you'd come here," he said finally, after a long silence. "It's in your blood. I've never known a Hedge or a Prower who didn't rock the boat."

The Hedges felt all of their questions bump into each other in their heads, like frantic sailors deserting a sinking ship. "What is this place?" Tails asked. "How did you know our parents?"

"Why have you lied to us about so many things?" Amy demanded. "Why are you keeping so many secrets?"

"Who are you?" Sonic asked.

Mighty took another step closer to the Hedges and gazed down at Sonic, who gazed back at the facilitator, and then stared down at the clay still packed around his feet. "Did you know I used to be a schoolteacher?" he asked. "This was many years ago, in the city. There were always a few children in my chemistry classes who had the same gleam in their eyes that you Hedges have. Those students always

turned in the most interesting assignments." He sighed, and sat down on one of the reading chairs in the center of the room. "They also always gave me the most trouble. I remember one child in particular, who had scraggly dark hair and just one eyebrow."

"Count Eggman," Tails said.

Mighty frowned, and blinked at the eldest Hedge. "No," he said. "This was a little girl. She had one eyebrow and, thanks to an accident in her grandfather's laboratory, only one ear. She was an orphan, and she lived with her siblings in a house owned by a terrible woman, a violent drunkard who was famous for having killed a man in her youth with nothing but her bare hands and a very ripe cantaloupe. The cantaloupe was grown on a farm that is no longer in operation, the Lucky Smells Melon Farm, which was owned by–"

"Sir," Amy said.

Mighty frowned again. "No," he said. "The farm was owned by two brothers, one of whom was later murdered in a small village, where three innocent children were accused of the crime."

"Chocolate," Sonic said.

"No," Mighty said with another frown. "There was some argument about his name, actually, as he appeared to use several names depending on what he was wearing. In any case, the student in my class began to be very suspicious about the tea her guardian would pour for her when she got home from school. Rather than drink it, she would dump it into a houseplant that had been used to decorate a well-known stylish restaurant with a fish theme."

"Cafe Salmonella," Tails said.

"No," Mighty said, and frowned once more. "The Bistro Smelt. Of course, my student realized she couldn't keep feeding tea to the houseplant, particularly after it withered away and the houseplant's

owner was whisked off to Peru aboard a mysterious ship." "The Prospero" Amy said.

Mighty offered the youngsters yet another frown. "Yes," he said, "although at the time the ship was called the Pericles. But my student didn't know that. She only wanted to avoid being poisoned, and I had an idea that an antidote might be hidden–"

"Yaw," Sonic interrupted, and his siblings nodded in agreement. By "yaw," the youngest Hedge meant "Mighty 's story is tangential," a word which here means "answering questions other than the ones the Hedges had asked."

"We want to know what's going on here on the island, at this very moment," Tails said, "not what happened in a classroom many years ago."

"But what is happening now and what happened then are part of the same story," Mighty said. "If I don't tell you how I came to prefer tea that's as bitter as wormwood, then you won't know how I came to have a very important conversation with a waiter in a lakeside town. And

if I don't tell you about that conversation, then you won't know how I ended up on a certain bathyscaphe, or how I ended up shipwrecked here, or how I came to meet your parents, or anything else contained in this book." He took the heavy volume from Amy's hands and ran his fingers along the spine, where the long, somewhat wordy title was printed in gold block letters. "People have been writing stories in this book since the first castaways washed up on the island, and all the stories are connected in one way or another. If you ask one question, it will lead you to another, and another, and another. It's like peeling an onion." "But you can't read every story, and answer every question," Amy said, "even if you'd like to."

Mighty smiled and tugged at his beard. "That's just what your parents told me," he said. "When I arrived here they'd been on the island a few months, but they'd become the colony's facilitators, and had suggested some new customs. Your father had suggested that a few castaway construction workers install the periscope in the tree, to search for storms, and your mother had suggested that a shipwrecked plumber devise a water filtration system, so the colony could have fresh water, right from the kitchen sink. Rosemary Prower a pregnant fox, managed to install a windmill on the tree to generate electricity. Yes Tails, she was your mother. Your parents had begun a library from all the documents that were here, and were adding hundreds of stories to the commonplace book. Gourmet meals were served, and your parents had convinced some of the other castaways to expand this underground space." He gestured to the long bookshelf, which disappeared into the darkness. "They wanted to dig a passageway that would lead to a marine research center and rhetorical advice service some miles away." The Hedges exchanged amazed looks. Captain Charmy Widdershins had described such a place, and in fact the children had spent some desperate hours in its ruined basement. "You mean if we walk along the bookcase," Amy said, "we'll reach Anwhistle Aquatics?"

Mighty shook his head. "The passageway was never finished," he said, "and it's a good thing, too. The research center was destroyed in a fire, which might have spread through the passageway and reached the island. And it turned out that a very deadly fungus was contained in that place. I shudder to think what might happen if the Medusoid Mycelium ever reached these shores."

The Hedges looked at one another again, but said nothing, preferring to keep one of their secrets even as Mighty told them some of his own. The story of the Hedge children may have connected with Mighty 's story of the spores contained in the diving helmet Count Eggman

was hiding under his gown in the bird cage in which he was a prisoner, but the siblings saw no reason to volunteer this information.

"Some islanders thought the passage was a wonderful idea," Mighty continued. "Your parents wanted to carry all of the documents that had washed up here to Anwhistle Aquatics, where they might be sent to a sub-sub-librarian who had a secret library. Others wanted to keep the island safe, far from the treachery of the world. By the time I arrived, some islanders wanted to mutiny, and abandon your parents on the coastal shelf." The facilitator heaved a great sigh, and closed the heavy book in his lap. "I walked into the middle of this story," he said, "just as you walked into the middle of mine. Some of the islanders had found weapons in the detritus, and the situation might have become violent if I hadn't convinced the colony to simply abandon your parents. We allowed

them to pack a few books into a fishing boat your father had built, and in the morning they left with a few of their comrades as the coastal shelf flooded. They left behind everything they'd created here, from the periscope I use to predict the weather to the commonplace book where I continue their research."

"You drove our parents away?" Tails asked in amazement.

"They were very sad to go," Mighty said. "Rosemary died giving birth to you Tails, 2 months prior, your dad was long dead. They were planning to tell you on your 15th birthday. and after all of their years with V.F.D. your parents weren't sure they wanted their children, when they had some, exposed to the world's treachery. But they didn't understand that if the passageway had been completed, you would have been exposed to the world's treachery in any case.

Sooner or later, everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two–a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set. The only solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life."

"That's why you keep so many items away from the others," Amy said.

"It depends on how you look at it," Mighty said. "I wanted this place to be as safe as possible, so when I became the island's facilitator, I suggested some new customs myself. I moved the colony to the other

side of the island, and I trained the sheep to drag the weapons away, and then the books and mechanical devices, so none of the world's detritus would interfere with our safety. I suggested we all dress alike, and eat the same meals, to avoid any future schisms."

"Jojishoji," Sonic said, which meant something like, "I don't believe that abridging the freedom of expression and the free exercise thereof is the proper way to run a community."

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "The other islanders couldn't have agreed with these new customs."

"I didn't force them," Mighty said, "but, of course, the coconut cordial helped. The fermented beverage is so strong that it serves as a sort of opiate for the people here."

"Lethe?" Sonic asked.

"An opiate is something that makes people drowsy and inactive," Amy said, "or even forgetful."

"The more cordial the islanders drank," Mighty explained, "the less they thought about the past, or complained about the things they were missing."

"That's why hardly anyone leaves this place," Tails said. "They're too drowsy to think about leaving."

"Occasionally someone leaves," Mighty said, and looked down at the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who gave him a brief hiss. "Some time ago, two women sailed off with this very snake, and a few years later, a man named Thursday left with a few comrades."

"So Thursday is alive," Amy said, "just like Vanilla said."

"Yes," Mighty admitted, "but at my suggestion, Miranda told her daughter that he died in a storm, so she wouldn't worry about the schism that divided her parents."

"Electra," Sonic said, which meant "A family shouldn't keep such terrible secrets," but Mighty did not ask for a translation.

"Except for those troublemakers," he said, "everyone has stayed here. And why shouldn't they? Most of the castaways are orphans, like me, and like you. I know your story, Hedges, from all the newspaper articles, police reports, financial newsletters, telegrams, private correspondence, and fortune cookies that have washed up here. You've been wandering this treacherous world since your story began, and you've never found a place as safe as this one. Why don't you stay? Give up your mechanical inventions and your reading and your cooking. Forget about Count Eggman and V.F.D. Leave your ribbon, and your commonplace book, and your whisk, and your raft library, and lead a simple, safe life on our shores."

"What about Vanilla?" Tails asked.

"In my experience, the Snickets are as much trouble as the Hedges and the Prowers," Mighty said. "That's why I suggested you leave her on the coastal shelf, so she wouldn't make trouble for the colony. But if you can be convinced to choose a simpler life, I suppose she can, too."

The Hedges looked at one another doubtfully. They already knew that Vanilla wanted to return to the world and make sure justice was served, and as volunteers they should have been eager to join her. But Tails, Amy, and Sonic were not sure they could abandon the first safe place they had found, even if it was a little dull. "Can't we stay here," Amy asked, "and lead a more complicated life, with the items and documents here in the arboretum?"

"And spices?" Sonic added.

"And keep them a secret from the other islanders?" Mighty said with a frown.

"That's what you're doing," Amy couldn't help pointing out. "All day long you sit in your chair and make sure the island is safe from the detritus of the world, but then you sneak off to the arboretum on your perfectly healthy feet and write in a commonplace book while snacking on bitter apples. You want everyone to lead a simple, safe life–everyone except yourself."

"No one should lead the life I lead," Mighty said, with a long, sad tug on his beard. "I've spent countless years cataloging all of the objects that have washed up on these shores and all the stories those objects tell.

I've repaired all the documents that the storms have damaged, and taken notes on every detail. I've read more of the world's treacherous history than almost anyone, and as one of my colleagues once said, this history is indeed little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."

"Gibbon," Sonic said. She meant something like, "We want to read this history, no matter how miserable it's," and her siblings were quick to translate. But Mighty tugged at his beard again, and shook his head firmly at the three children.

"Don't you see?" he asked. "I'm not just the island's facilitator. I'm the island's parent. I keep this library far away from the people under my care, so that they will never be disturbed by the world's terrible secrets." The facilitator reached into a pocket of his robe and held out a small object. The Hedges saw that it was an ornate ring, emblazoned with the initial R, and stared at it, quite puzzled.

Mighty opened the enormous volume in his lap, and turned a few pages

to read from his notes. "This ring," he said, "once belonged to the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, who was also the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, and so on and so on and so on. Eventually, the last Duchess of Winnipeg joined V.F.D., and gave it to Vanilla Snicket's brother. He gave it to your mother. For reasons I still don't understand, she gave it back to him, and he gave it to Vanilla, and Vanilla gave it to Rosemary, who gave it to your father, who gave it to your mother when they were married. She kept it locked in a wooden box that could only be opened by a key that was kept in a wooden box that could only be opened by a code that Vanilla Snicket learned from her grandfather. The wooden box turned to ashes in the fire that destroyed the Hedge mansion, and Captain Charmy Widdershins found the ring in the wreckage only to lose it in a storm at sea, which eventually washed it onto our shores."

"Neiklot?" Sonic asked, which meant "Why are you telling us about this ring?"

"The point of the story isn't the ring," Mighty said. "It's the fact that you've never seen it until this moment. This ring, with its long secret history, was in your home for years, and your parents never mentioned it. Your parents never told you about the Duchess of Winnipeg, or Captain Charmy Widdershins, or the Snicket siblings, or V.F.D. Your parents never told you they'd lived here, or that they were forced to leave, or any other details of their own unfortunate history. They never told you their whole story."

"Then let us read that book," Amy said, "so we can find out for ourselves."

Mighty shook his head. "You don't understand," he said, which is something the middle Hedge never liked to be told. "Your parents didn't tell you these things because they wanted to shelter you, just as

this apple tree shelters the items in the arboretum from the island's frequent storms, and just as I shelter the colony from the complicated history of the world. No sensible parent would let their child read even the title of this dreadful, sad chronicle, when they could keep them far from the treachery of the world instead. Now that you've ended up here, don't you want to respect their wishes?" He closed the book again, and stood up, gazing at all three Hedges in turn. "Just because your parents have died," he said quietly, "doesn't mean they've failed you.

Not if you stay here and lead the life they wanted you to lead." Tails thought of her mother again, bringing the cup of star anise tea on that restless evening. "Are you sure this is what our parents would have wanted?" she asked, not knowing if she could trust his answer.

"If they didn't want to keep you safe," he said, "they would have told you everything, so you could add another chapter to this unfortunate history." He put the book down on the reading chair, and put the ring in Tails' hand. "You belong here, Hedges, on this island and under my care.

I'll tell the islanders that you've changed your minds, and that you're abandoning your troublesome past."

"Will they support you?" Tails asked, thinking of Perici and Boomer and their plan to mutiny at breakfast.

"Of course they will," Mighty said. "The life we lead here on the island is better than the treachery of the world. Leave the arboretum with me, children, and you can join us for breakfast."

"And cordial," Amy said. "No apples," Sonic said.

Mighty gave the children one last nod, and led the children up through the gap in the roots of the tree, turning off the lights as he went. The Hedges stepped out into the arboretum, and looked back one last time at the secret space. In the dim light they could just make out the shape of the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who slithered over Mighty 's commonplace book and followed the children into the morning air. The

sun filtered through the shade of the enormous apple tree, and shone on the gold block letters on the spine of the book. The children wondered whether the letters had been printed there by their parents, or perhaps by the previous writer of the commonplace book, or the writer before that, or the writer before that. They wondered how many stories the oddly titled history contained, and how many people had gazed at the gold lettering before paging through the previous crimes, follies, and misfortunes and adding more of their own, like the thin layers of an onion. As they walked out of the arboretum, led by their clay-footed facilitator, the Hedge orphans wondered about their own unfortunate history, and that of their parents and all the other castaways who had washed up on the shores of the island, adding chapter upon chapter to A Series of Unfortunate Events.

ELEVEN

Perhaps one night, when you were very small, someone tucked you into bed and read you a story called "The Little Engine That Could," and if so then you have my profound sympathies, as it's one of the most tedious stories on Earth. The story probably put you right to sleep, which is the reason it's read to children, so I will remind you that the story involves the engine of a train that for some reason has the ability to think and talk. Someone asks the Little Engine That Could to do a difficult task too dull for me to describe, and the engine isn't sure it can accomplish this, but it begins to mutter to itself, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," and before long it has muttered its way to success. The moral of the story is that if you tell yourself you can do something, then you can actually do it, a moral easily disproved if you tell yourself that you can eat nine pints of ice cream in a single sitting, or that you can shipwreck yourself on a distant island simply by setting off in a rented canoe with holes sawed in it.

I only mention the story of the Little Engine That Could so that when I say that the Hedge orphans, as they left the arboretum with Mighty and headed back toward the island colony, were on board the Little Engine That Couldn't, you will understand what I mean. For one thing, the children were being dragged back to Mighty 's tent on the large wooden sleigh, helmed by Mighty in his enormous clay chair and

dragged by the island's wild sheep, and if you have ever wondered why horse-drawn carriages and dogsleds are far more common modes of travel than sheep-dragged sleighs, it's because sheep are not well-suited for employment in the transportation industry. The sheep meandered and detoured, lollygagged and moseyed, and occasionally stopped to nibble on wild grass or simply breathe in the morning air, and Mighty tried to convince the sheep to go faster through his facilitation skills, rather than through standard shepherding procedures. "I don't want to force you," he kept saying, "but perhaps you sheep could go a bit faster," and the sheep would merely stare blankly at the old man and keep shuffling along.

But the Hedge orphans were on board the Little Engine That Couldn't not only because of the sheep's languor–a word which here means "inability to pull a large, wooden sleigh at a reasonable pace"–but because their own thoughts were not spurring them to action. Unlike the engine in the tedious story, no matter what Tails, Amy, and Sonic told themselves, they could not imagine a successful solution to their difficulties. The children tried to tell themselves that they would do as Mighty had suggested, and lead a safe life on the colony, but they could not imagine abandoning Vanilla Snicket on the coastal shelf, or letting her return to the world to see that justice would be served without accompanying her on this noble errand. The siblings tried to tell themselves that they would obey their parents' wishes, and stay sheltered from their unfortunate history, but they did not think that they could keep themselves away from the arboretum, or from reading what their parents had written in the enormous book. The Hedges tried to tell themselves that they would join Perici and Boomer in the mutiny at breakfast, but they could not picture threatening the facilitator and his

supporters with weapons, particularly because they had not brought any from the arboretum. They tried to tell themselves that at least they could be glad that Count Eggman was not a threat, but they could not quite approve of his being locked in a bird cage, and they shuddered to think of the fungus hidden in his gown and the scheme hidden in his head.

And, throughout the entire journey over the brae and back toward the beach, the three children tried to tell themselves that everything was all right, but of course everything was not all right. Everything was all wrong, and Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not quite know how a safe place, far from the treachery of the world, had become so dangerous and complicated as soon as they had arrived. The Hedge orphans sat in the sleigh, staring at Mighty 's clay-covered clay feet, and no latter how many times they thought they could, they thought they could, they thought they could think of an end to their troubles, they knew it simply was not the case.

Finally, however, the sheep dragged the sleigh across the beach's white sands and through the opening of the enormous tent. Once again, the joint was hopping, but the gathered islanders were in the midst of an argybargy, a word for "argument" that is far less cute than it sounds.

Despite the presence of an opiate in seashells dangling from the waists of every colonist, the islanders were anything but drowsy and inactive. Ray was grabbing the arm of Zavok , who was shrieking in annoyance while stepping on Dr. Nega's foot. Zazz's face was even redder than usual as he threw sand in the face of Mr. Ashura , who appeared to be trying to bite Buns's finger. Professor Finitevus was shouting at Li Moon, and Ms. Zeenawas stomping her feet at Honey, and Madame Lumina and Rabbi Jules seemed ready to begin wrestling on the sand. Bokkun twirled his mustache at Bark, while Storm tugged his beard at

Methilius and Ella seemed to tear out her red hair for no reason at all. Jonah and Sadie Bellamy were standing face-to-face arguing, while Cosmo and Mrs. Caliban were standing back-to-back as if they would never speak to each other again, and all the while Chris stood near Mighty 's chair with his hands held suspiciously behind his back. While Mighty gaped at the islanders in amazement, the three children stepped off the sleigh and walked quickly toward Perici and Boomer, who were looking at them expectantly.

"Where were you?" Boomer said. "We waited as long as we could for you to return, but we had to leave your friend behind and begin the mutiny." "You left Vanilla out there alone?" Tails said. "You promised you'd stay with

her."

"And you promised us weapons," said Perici. "Where are they, Hedges?"

"We don't have any," Amy admitted. "Mighty was at the arboretum."

"Count Eggman was right," Perici said. "You failed us, Hedges." "What do you mean, 'Count Eggman was right'?" Tails demanded.

"What do you mean, 'Mighty was at the arboretum'?" Boomer demanded. "What do you mean, what do I mean?" Perici demanded.

"What you mean what you mean what I mean?" Sonic demanded. "Please, everyone!" Mighty cried from his clay chair. "I suggest we all

take a few sips of cordial and discuss this cordially!"

"I'm tired of drinking cordial," Professor Finitevus said, "and I'm tired of your suggestions, Mighty !"

"Call me Might," the facilitator said.

"I'm calling you a bad facilitator!" retorted Honey.

"Please, everyone!" Mighty cried again, with a nervous tug at his beard. "What is all this argy-bargy about?"

"I'll tell you what it's about," Ray said. "I washed up on these shores

many years ago, after enduring a terrible storm and a dreadful political scandal."

"So what?" Rabbi Jules asked. "Eventually, everyone washes up on these shores."

"I wanted to leave my unfortunate history behind," Ray said, "and live a peaceful life free from trouble. But now there are some colonists talking of mutiny. If we're not careful, this island will become as treacherous as the rest of the world!"

"Mutiny?" Mighty said in horror. "Who dares talk of mutiny?"

"I dare," Perici said. "I'm tired of your facilitation, Mighty . I washed ashore on this island after living on another island even farther away. I was tired of a peaceful life, and ready for adventure. But whenever anything exciting arrives on this island, you immediately have it thrown into the arboretum!"

"It depends on how you look at it," Mighty protested. "I don't force anyone to throw anything away."

"Mighty is right!" Li Moon cried. "Some of us have had enough adventure for a lifetime! I washed up on these shores after finally escaping from prison, where I had disguised myself as a young man for years! I've stayed here for my own safety, not to participate in more dangerous schemes!"

"Then you should join our mutiny!" Zazz cried. "Mighty is not to be trusted! We abandoned the Hedges on the coastal shelf, and now he's brought them back!"

"The Hedges never should have been abandoned in the first place!" Ms. Zeenacried. "All they wanted to do was help their friend!"

"Their friend is suspicious," claimed Mr. Ashura . "She arrived on a raft of books."

"So what?" said Ella. "I arrived on a raft of books myself."

"But you abandoned them," Professor Finitevus pointed out.

"She did nothing of the sort!" cried Methilius . "You helped her hide them, so you could force those children to read!"

"We wanted to learn to read!" Cosmo insisted.

"You're reading?" Mrs. Caliban gasped in astonishment. "You shouldn't be reading!" cried Madame Lumina. "Well, you shouldn't be yodeling!" cried Dr. Nega.

"You're yodeling?" Rabbi Jules asked in astonishment. "Maybe we should have a mutiny after all!"

"Yodeling is better than carrying a flashlight!" Jonah cried, pointing at Boomer accusingly.

"Carrying a flashlight is better than hiding a picnic basket!" Sadie cried, pointing at Perici.

"Hiding a picnic basket is better than pocketing a whisk!" Perici said, pointing at Sonic.

"These secrets will destroy us!" Li Moon said. "Life here is supposed to be simple!"

"There's nothing wrong with a complicated life," said Bokkun. "I lived a simple life as a sailor for many years, and I was bored to tears until I was shipwrecked."

"Bored to tears?" Cosmo said in astonishment. "All I want is the simple life my mother and father had together, without arguing or keeping secrets."

"That's enough," Mighty said quickly. "I suggest that we stop arguing." "I suggest we continue to argue!" cried Perici.

"I suggest we abandon Mighty and his supporters!" cried Professor Finitevus .

"I suggest we abandon the mutineers!" cried Honey.

"I suggest better food!" cried another islander.

"I suggest more cordial!" cried another.

"I suggest a more attractive robe!"

"I suggest a proper house instead of a tent!"

"I suggest fresh water!" "I suggest eating bitter apples!"

"I suggest chopping down the apple tree!"

"I suggest burning up the outrigger!"

"I suggest a talent show!"

"I suggest reading a book!"

"I suggest burning all books!"

"I suggest yodeling!"

"I suggest forbidding yodeling!"

"I suggest a safe place!"

"I suggest a complicated life!"

"I suggest it depends on how you look at it!"

"I suggest justice!"

"I suggest breakfast!"

"I suggest we stay and you leave!"

"I suggest you stay and we leave!"

"I suggest we return to Winnipeg!"

The Hedges looked at one another in despair as the mutinous schism worked its way through the colony. Seashells hung open at the waists of the islanders, but there was no cordiality evident as the islanders turned against one another in fury, even if they were friends, or members of the same family, or shared a history or a secret organization. The siblings had seen angry crowds before, of course, from the mob psychology of the citizens in the Village of Fowl Devotees to the blind justice of the trial at the Hotel Denouement, but they had never seen a community divide so suddenly and so completely. Tails, Amy, and Sonic watched the schism unfold and could imagine what the other schisms must have been like, from the schism that split V.F.D., to the schism that drove their parents away from the very same island, to all the other schisms in the world's sad history, with every person

suggesting something different, every story like a layer of an onion, and every unfortunate event like a chapter in an enormous book. The Hedges watched the terrible argy-bargy and wondered how they could have hoped the island would be a safe place, far from the treachery of the world, when eventually every treachery washed up on its shores, like a castaway tossed by a storm at sea, and divided the people who lived there. The arguing voices of the islanders grew louder and louder, with everyone suggesting something but nobody

listening to anyone else's suggestions, until the schism was a deafening roar that was finally broken by the loudest voice of all.

"SILENCE! " bellowed a figure who entered the tent, and the islanders stopped talking at once, and stared in amazement at the person who stood glaring at them in a long dress that bulged at the belly.

"What are you doing here?" gasped someone from the back of the tent. "We abandoned you on the coastal shelf!"

The figure strode into the middle of the tent, and I'm sorry to tell you that it was not Vanilla Snicket, who was still in a long dress that bulged at the belly on top of her library raft, but Count Eggman, whose bulging belly, of course, was the diving helmet containing the Medusoid Mycelium, and whose orange and yellow dress the Hedges suddenly recognized as the dress Eudora Squalor wore on top of the Mortmain Mountains, a hideous thing fashioned to look like an enormous fire, which had somehow washed onto the island's shores like everything else. As Eggman paused to give the siblings a particularly wicked smile, the children tried to imagine the secret history of Eudora dress, and how, like the ring Tails still held in her hand, it had returned to the Hedges' story after all this time.

"You can't abandon me," the villain snarled to the islander. "I'm the king

of Eggman-Land."

"This isn't Eggman-Land," Mighty said, with a stern tug on his beard, "and you're no king, Eggman."

Count Eggman threw back his head and laughed, his tattered dress quivering in mirth, a phrase which here means "making unpleasant rustling noises." With a sneer, he pointed at Mighty , who still sat in the chair. "Oh, Ish," he said, his eyes shining bright, "I told you many years ago that I would triumph over you someday, and at last that day has arrived. My associate with the weekday for a name told me that you were still hiding out on this island, and–"

"Thursday," Mrs. Caliban said.

Eggman frowned, and blinked at the freckled woman. "No," he said. "Monday. She was trying to blackmail an old man who was involved in a political scandal."

"Gonzalo," Ray said.

Eggman frowned again. "No," he said. "We'd gone bird-watching, this old man and I, when we decided to rob a sealing schooner owned by-" "Humphrey," Ella said.

"No," Eggman said with another frown. "There was some argument about his name, actually, as a baby adopted by his orphaned children also bore the same name."

"Bertrand," Chris said.

"No," Eggman said, and frowned yet another time. "The adoption papers were hidden in the hat of a banker who had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs."

"Mr. Silver Poe?" asked Sadie.

"Yes, " Eggman said with a scowl, "although at the time he was better known under his stage name. But I'm not here to discuss the past. I'm here to

discuss the future. Your mutineering islanders let me out of this cage, Mighty , to force you off the island and crown me as king!"

"King?" Perici said. "That wasn't the plan, Eggman."

"If you want to live, old woman," Eggman said rudely, "I suggest that you do whatever I say."

"You're already giving us suggestions?" Buns said incredulously. "You're just like Mighty , although your outfit's prettier."

"Thank you," Count Eggman said, with a wicked smile, "but there's another important difference between me and this foolish facilitator."

"Your tattoo?" Cosmo guessed.

"No," Count Eggman said, with a frown. "If you were to wash the clay of Mighty 's feet, you'd see he has the same tattoo as I do."

"Eyeliner?" guessed Madame Lumina. "No," Count Eggman said sharply. "The difference is that Mighty is unarmed. He abandoned his weapons long ago, during the V.F.D. schism, refusing to use violence of any sort. But today, you'll all see how foolish he is." He paused, and ran his filthy hands along his bulging belly before turning to the facilitator, who was taking something from Chris's hands. "I have the only weapon that can threaten you and your supporters," he bragged. "I'm the king of EggmanLand, and there's nothing you and your sheep can do about it."

"Don't be so sure about that," Mighty said, and raised an object in the air so everyone could see it. It was the harpoon gun that had washed ashore with Eggman and the Hedges, after being used to fire at crows at the Hotel Denouement, and at a self-sustaining hot air mobile home in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and at a cotton-candy machine at a county fair when the Hedges' parents were very, very young. Now the weapon was adding another chapter to its secret history, and was pointing right at Count Eggman. "I had Chris keep this weapon

handy," Mighty said, "instead of tossing it in the arboretum, because I thought you might escape from that cage, Count Eggman, just as I escaped from the cage you put me in when you set fire to my home."

"I didn't set that fire," Count Eggman said, his eyes shining bright.

"I've had enough of your lies," Mighty said, and stood up from his chair. Realizing that the facilitator's feet were not injured after all, the islanders gasped, which requires a large intake of breath, a dangerous thing to do if spores of a deadly fungus are in the air. "I'm going to do what I should have done years ago, Eggman, and slaughter you. I'm going to fire this harpoon gun right into that bulging belly of yours!"

"No!" screamed the Hedges in unison, but even the combined voices of the three children were not as loud as Count Eggman's villainous laughter, and the facilitator never heard the children's cry as he pulled the bright red trigger of this terrible weapon. The children heard a click!

and then a whoosh! as the harpoon was fired, and then, as it struck Count Eggman right where Mighty had promised, they heard the shattering of glass, and the Medusoid Mycelium, with its own secret history of treachery and violence, was free at last to circulate in the air, even in this safe place so far from the world. Everyone in the tent gasped–islanders and colonists, men and women, children and orphans, volunteers and villains and everyone in between. Everyone breathed in the spores of the deadly fungus as Count Eggman toppled backward onto the sand, still laughing even as he gasped himself, and in an instant the schism of the island was over, because everyone in this place–including, of course, the Hedge orphans–was suddenly part of the same unfortunate event.

R

 **Twelve**

If is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. The second time you have a root beer float, for instance, your happiness at sipping the delicious concoction may be not quite as enormous as when you first had a root beer float, and the twelfth time your happiness may be still less enormous, until root beer floats begin to offer you very little happiness at all, because you have become used to the taste of vanilla ice cream and root beer mixed together. However, the second time you find a thumbtack in your root beer float, your despair is much greater than the first time, when you dismissed the thumbtack as a freak accident rather than part of the scheme of the soda jerk, a phrase which here means "ice cream shop employee who is trying to injure your tongue," and by the twelfth time you find a thumbtack your despair is even greater still, until you can hardly utter the phrase "root beer float" without bursting into tears. It's almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it. As the glass shattered in the tent, the Hedge orphans stood and stared at the standing figure of Mighty , but even as they felt the Medusoid Mycelium drift into their bodies, each tiny spore feeling like the footstep of an ant walking down their throats, they could not believe

that their own story could contain such despair once more, or that such a terrible thing had happened.

"What happened?" Cosmo cried. "I heard glass breaking!"

"Never mind the breaking glass," Perici said. "I feel something in my throat, like a tiny seed!"

"Never mind your seedy throat," Boomer said. "I see Mighty standing up on his own two feet!"

Count Eggman cackled from the white sand where he lay. With one dramatic gesture he yanked the harpoon out of the mess of broken helmet and tattered dress at his stomach, and threw it at Mighty 's clay feet. "The sound you heard was the shattering of a diving helmet," he sneered. "The seeds you feel in your throats are the spores of the Medusoid Mycelium, and the man standing on his own two feet is the one who has slaughtered you all!"

"The Medusoid Mycelium?" Mighty repeated in astonishment, as the islanders gasped again. "On these shores? It can't be! I've spent my life trying to keep the island forever safe from that terrible fungus!"

"Nothing's safe forever, thank goodness," Count Eggman said, "and you of all people should know that eventually everything washes up on these shores. The Hedge family has finally returned to this island after you threw them off years ago, and they brought the Medusoid Mycelium with them."

Mighty 's eyes widened, and he jumped off the edge of the sleigh to stand and confront the Hedge orphans. As his feet landed on the ground, the clay cracked and fell away, and the children could see that the facilitator had a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle, just as Count Eggman had said. "You brought the Medusoid Mycelium?" he asked. "You had a deadly fungus with you all this time, and you kept it a secret from us?"

"You're a fine one to talk about keeping secrets!" Ray said. "Look at your healthy feet, Mighty ! Your dishonesty is the root of the trouble!" "It's the mutineers who are the root of the trouble!" cried Li Moon. "If they hadn't let Count Eggman out of the cage, this never would have happened!"

"It depends on how you look at it," Professor Finitevus said. "In my opinion, all of us are the root of the trouble. If we hadn't put Count Eggman in the cage, he never would have threatened us!"

"We're the root of the trouble because we failed to find the diving helmet," Bark said. "If we'd retrieved it while storm scavenging, the sheep would have dragged it to the arboretum and we would have been safe!"

"Chris is the root of the trouble," Dr. Nega said, pointing at the young boy. "He's the one who gave Mighty the harpoon gun instead

of dumping it in the arboretum!"

"It's Count Eggman who's the root of the trouble!" cried Methilius . "He's the one who brought the fungus into the tent!"

"I'm not the root of the trouble," Count Eggman snarled, and then paused to cough loudly before continuing. "I'm the king of the island!"

"It doesn't matter whether you're king or not," Tails said. "You've breathed in the fungus like everyone else."

"Tails's right," Amy said. "We don't have time to stand here arguing." Even without his commonplace book, Amy could recite a poem about the fungus that was first recited to him by Fiona shortly before she had broken his heart. "A single spore has such grim power I That you may die within the hour," he said. "If we don't quit our fighting and work together, we'll all end up dead."

The tent was filled with ululation, a word which here means "the sound of panicking islanders." "Dead?" Madame Lumina shrieked. "Nobody said the fungus was deadly! I thought we were merely being threatened with

forbidden food!"

"I didn't stay on this island to die!" cried Ms. Marlow. "I could have died at home!"

"Nobody is going to die," Mighty announced to the crowd.

"It depends on how you look at it," Rabbi Jules said. "Eventually we're all going to die."

"Not if you follow my suggestions," Mighty insisted. "Now first, I suggest that everyone take a nice, long drink from their seashells. The cordial will chase the fungus from your throats."

"No, it won't!" Tails cried. "Fermented coconut milk has no effect on the Medusoid Mycelium!"

"That may be so," Mighty said, "but at least we'll all feel a bit calmer." "You mean drowsy and inactive," Amy corrected. "The cordial is an opiate."

"There's nothing wrong with cordiality," Mighty said. "I suggest we all spend a few minutes discussing our situation in a cordial manner.

We can decide what the root of the problem is, and come up with a solution at our leisure."

"That does sound reasonable," Honey admitted.

"Trahison des clercs!" Sonic cried, which meant "You're forgetting about the quick acting poison in the fungus!"

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "We need to find a solution now, not sit around talking about it over beverages!"

"The solution is in the arboretum," Tails said, "and in the secret space under the roots of the apple tree."

"Secret space?" Zazz said. "What secret space?"

"There's a library down there," Amy said, as the crowd murmured in surprise, "cataloging all of the objects that have washed ashore and all the stories those objects tell."

"And kitchen," Sonic added. "Maybe horseradish."

"Horseradish is the one way to dilute the poison," Tails explained, and recited the rest of the poem the children had heard aboard the Queequeg. "Is dilution simple? But of course Just one small dose of root of horse." She looked around the tent at the frightened faces of the islanders. "The kitchen beneath the apple tree might have horseradish," he said. "We can save ourselves if we hurry."

"They're lying," Mighty said. "There's nothing in the arboretum but junk, and there's nothing underneath the tree but dirt. The Hedges are trying to trick you."

"We're not trying to trick anyone," Amy said. "We're trying to save everyone."

"The Hedges knew the Medusoid Mycelium was here," Mighty pointed out, "and they never told us. You can't trust them, but you can trust me, and I suggest we all sit and sip our cordials."

"Razoo," Sonic said, which meant "You're the one not to be trusted," but rather than translate, her siblings stepped closer to Mighty so they could speak to him in relative privacy.

"Why are you doing this?" Tails asked. "If you just sit here and drink cordial, you'll be doomed."

"We've all breathed in the poison," Amy said. "We're all in the same boat."

Mighty raised his eyebrows, and gave the children a grim smile. "We'll see about that," he said. "Now get out of my tent."

"Hightail it," Sonic said, which meant "We'd better hurry," and his siblings nodded in agreement. The Hedge orphans quickly left the tent, looking back to get one more glimpse of the worried islanders, the scowling facilitator, and Count Eggman, who still lay on the sand clutching his belly, as if the harpoon had not just destroyed the diving helmet, but

wounded him, too.

Tails, Amy, and Sonic did not travel back to the far side of the island by sheep-dragged sleigh, but even as they hurried over the brae they felt as if they were aboard the Little Engine That Couldn't, not only because of the desperate nature of their errand, but because of the poison they felt working its wicked way through the Hedge systems. Tails and Amy learned what their brother had gone through deep beneath the ocean's surface, when Sonic had nearly perished from the fungus's deadly poison, and Sonic received a refresher course, a phrase which here means "another opportunity to feel the stalks and caps of the Medusoid Mycelium begin to sprout in her little throat." The children had to stop several times to cough, as the growing fungus was making it difficult to breathe, and by the time they stood underneath the branches of the apple tree, the Hedge orphans were wheezing heavily in the afternoon sun.

"We don't have much time," Tails said, between breaths.

"We'll go straight to the kitchen," Amy said, walking through the gap in the tree's roots as the Incredibly Deadly Viper had shown them. "Hope horseradish," Sonic said, following her brother, but when the Hedges reached the kitchen they were in for a disappointment.

Tails flicked the switch that lit up the kitchen, and the three children hurried to the spice rack, reading the labels on the jars and bottles one by one, but as they searched their hopes began to fade. The children found many of their favorite spices, including sage, oregano, and paprika, which was available in a number of varieties organized according to their level of smokiness. They found some of their least favorite spices, including dried parsley, which scarcely tastes like anything, and garlic salt, which forces the taste of everything else to

flee. They found spices they associated with certain dishes, such as turmeric, which their father used to use while making curried peanut soup, and nutmeg, which their mother used to mix into gingerbread, and they found spices they did not associate with anything, such as marjoram, which everyone owns but scarcely anyone uses, and powdered lemon peel, which should only be used in emergencies,

such as when fresh lemons have become extinct. They found spices used practically everywhere, such as salt and pepper, and spices used in certain regions, such as chipotle peppers and vindaloo rub, but none of the labels read HORSERADISH, and when they opened the jars and bottles, none of the powders, leaves, and seeds inside smelled like the horseradish factory that once stood on Lousy Lane.

"It doesn't have to be horseradish," Tails said quickly, putting down a jar of tarragon in frustration. "Wasabi was an adequate substitute when Sonic was infected."

"Or Eutrema," Sonic wheezed.

"There's no wasabi here, either," Amy said, sniffing a jar of mace and frowning. "Maybe it's hidden somewhere."

"Who would hide horseradish?" Tails asked, after a long cough. "Our parents," Sonic said.

"Sonic's right," Amy said. "If they knew about Anwhistle Aquatics, they

might have known of the dangers of the Medusoid Mycelium. Any horseradish that washed up on the island would have been very valuable indeed."

"We don't have time to search the entire arboretum to find horseradish," Tails said. he reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the ring Mighty had given him, and found the ribbon the facilitator had been using as a bookmark, which he used to tie up his hair so he might

think better. "That would be harder than trying to find the sugar bowl in the entire Hotel Denouement."

At the mention of the sugar bowl, Amy gave her glasses a quick polish and began to page through his commonplace book, while Sonic picked up her whisk and bit it thoughtfully. "Maybe it's hidden in one of the other spice jars," the middle Hedge said.

"We smelled them all," Tails said, between wheezes. "None of them smelled like horseradish."

"Maybe the scent was disguised by another spice," Amy said. "Something that was even more bitter than horseradish would cover the smell. Sonic, what are some of the bitterest spices?"

"Cloves," said Sonic, and wheezed. "Cardamom, arrowroot, wormwood." "Wormwood," Amy said thoughtfully, and flipped the pages of his commonplace book. "Vanilla mentioned wormwood once," she said, thinking of poor Vanilla alone on the coastal shelf. "She said tea should be as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two-edged sword. We were told the same thing when we were served tea right before our trial."

"No wormwood here," Sonic said.

"Mighty also said something about bitter tea," Tails said. "Remember? That student of his was afraid of being poisoned."

"Just like we are," Amy said, feeling the mushrooms growing inside him. "I wish we'd heard the end of that story."

"I wish we'd heard every story," Tails said, his voice sounding hoarse and rough from the poison. "I wish our parents had told us everything, instead of sheltering us from the treachery of the world."

"Maybe they did," Amy said, her voice as rough as her brother's, and the middle Hedge walked to the reading chairs in the middle of the room and picked up A Series of Unfortunate Events. "They wrote all of their

secrets here. If they hid the horseradish, we'll find it in this book." "We don't have time to read that entire book," Tails said, "any more than we have time to search the entire arboretum."

"If we fail," Sonic said, her voice heavy with fungus, "at least we die reading together."

The Hedge orphans nodded grimly, and embraced one another. Like most people, the children had occasionally been in a curious and somewhat morbid mood, and had spent a few moments wondering about the circumstances of their own deaths, although since that unhappy day on Briny Beach when Mr. Silver Poe had first informed them about the terrible fire, the children had spent so much time trying to avoid their own deaths that they preferred not to think about it in their time off. Most people do not choose their final circumstances, of course, and if the Hedges had been given the choice they would have liked to live to a very old age, which for all I know they may be doing. But if the three children had to perish while they were still three children, then perishing in one another's company while reading words written long ago by their mother and father was much better than many other things they could imagine, and so the three Hedges sat together in one of the reading chairs, preferring to be close to one another rather than having more room to sit, and together they opened the enormous book and turned back the pages until they reached the moment in history when their parents arrived on the island and began taking notes. The entries

in the book alternated between the handwriting of the Hedge father and the handwriting of the Hedge mother, and the children could imagine their parents sitting in these same chairs, reading out loud what they had written and suggesting things to add to the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind that comprised A Series of

Unfortunate Events. The children, of course, would have liked to savor each word their parents had written–the word "savor," you probably know, here means "read slowly, as each sentence in their parents' handwriting was like a gift from beyond the grave"but as the poison of the Medusoid Mycelium advanced further and further, the siblings had to skim, scanning each page for the words "horseradish" or "wasabi." As you know if you've ever skimmed a book, you end up getting a strange view of the story, with just glimpses here and there of what is going on, and some authors insert confusing sentences in the middle of a book just to confuse anyone who might be skimming. Three very short men were carrying a large, flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room.

As the Hedge orphans searched for the secret they hoped they would find, they caught glimpses of other secrets their parents had kept, and as Tails, Amy, and Sonic spotted the names of people the Hedge parents had known, things they had whispered to these people, the codes hidden in the whispers, and many other intriguing details, the children hoped they would have the opportunity to reread A Series of Unfortunate Events on a less frantic occasion. On that afternoon, however, they read faster and faster, looking desperately for the one secret that might save them as the hour began to pass and the Medusoid Mycelium grew faster and faster inside them, as if the deadly fungus also did not have time to savor its treacherous path. As they read more and more, it grew harder and harder for the Hedges to breathe, and when Amy finally spotted one of the words she had been looking for, he thought for a moment it was just a vision brought on by all the stalks and caps growing inside him.

"Horseradish!" she said, her voice rough and wheezy. "Look: 'Mighty 's fearmongering has stopped work on the passageway, even though we

have a plethora of horseradish in case of any emergency.'"

Tails started to speak, but then choked on the fungus and coughed for a long while. "What does 'fearmongering' mean?" he said finally.

"'Plethora'?" Sonic's voice was little more than a mushroom-choked whisper.

"'Fearmongering' means 'making people afraid,'" said Amy, whose vocabulary was unaffected by the poison, "and 'plethora' means 'more than enough.'" He gave a large, shuddering wheeze, and continued to read. "'We're attempting a botanical hybrid through the tuberous canopy, which should bring safety to fruition despite its dangers to our associates in utero. Of course, in case we are banished, Cream is hiding a small amount in a vess–'"

The middle Hedge interrupted herself with a cough that was so violent she dropped the book to the floor. Her brothers held him tightly as her body shook against the poison and one pale hand pointed at the ceiling. "'Tuberous canopy,'" she wheezed finally. "Our father means the roots above our heads. A botanical hybrid is a plant made from the combination of two other plants." sHe shuddered, and her eyes, behind her glasses, filled with tears. "I don't know what he's talking about," she said finally.

Tails looked at the roots over their heads, where the periscope disappeared into the network of the tree. To her horror he found that his vision was becoming blurry, as if the fungus was growing over his eyes. "It sounds like they put the horseradish into the roots of the plant, in order to make everyone safe," he said. "That's what 'bringing safety to fruition' would be, the way a tree brings its crop to fruition." "Apples!" cried Sonic in a strangled voice. "Bitter apples!"

"Of course!" Amy said. "The tree is a hybrid, and its apples are bitter

because they contain horseradish!"

"If we eat an apple," Tails said, "the fungus will be diluted." "Gentreefive," Sonic agreed in a croak, and lowered himself off his siblings' laps, wheezing desperately as he tried to get to the gap in the roots. Amy tried to follow him, but when she stood up the poison made him so dizzy that she had to sit back down and clasp her throbbing head. Tails coughed painfully, and gripped his sisters' arm.

"Come on," he said, in a frantic wheeze. Amy shook her head. "I'm not sure we can make it," she said.

Sonic reached toward the gap in the roots and then curled to the floor in pain. "Kikbucit?" he asked, his voice weak and faint.

"We can't die here," Tails said, his voice so feeble his siblings could scarcely hear him. "Our parents saved our lives in this very room, many years ago, without even knowing it."

"Maybe not," Amy said. "Maybe this is the end of our story." "Tumurchap," Sonic said, but before anyone could ask what he meant, the children heard another sound, faint and strange, in the secret space beneath the apple tree their parents had hybridized with horseradish long ago. The sound was sibilant, a word which might appear to have something to do with siblings, but actually refers to a sort of whistle or hiss, such as a steam engine might make as it comes to a stop, or an audience might make after sitting through one of Emang Con Gutm's plays. The Hedges were so desperate and frightened that for a moment they thought it might be the sound of Medusoid Mycelium, celebrating its poisonous triumph over the three children, or perhaps just the sound of their hopes evaporating. But the sibilance was not the sound of evaporating hope or celebrating fungus, and thank goodness it was not the sound of a steam engine or a disgruntled theatrical audience, as the

Hedges were not strong enough to confront such things. The hissing sound came from one of the few inhabitants of the island whose story contained not one but two shipwrecks, and perhaps because of its own sad history, this inhabitant was sympathetic to the sad history of the Hedges, although it's difficult to say how much sympathy can be felt by an animal, no matter how friendly. I do not have the courage to do much research on this matter, and my only herpetological comrade's story ended quite some time ago, so what this reptile was thinking as it slid toward the children is a detail of the Hedges' history that may never be revealed. But even with this missing detail, it's quite clear what happened. The snake slithered through the gap in the roots of the tree, and whatever the serpent was thinking, it was quite clear from

the sibilant sound that came hissing through the reptile's clenched teeth that the Incredibly Deadly Viper was offering the Hedge orphans an apple.

R

 **Thirteen**

If is a well-known but curious fact that the first bite of an apple always tastes the best, which is why the heroine of a book much more suitable to read than this one spends an entire afternoon eating the first bite of a bushel of apples. But even this anarchic little girl–the word "anarchic" here means "apple-loving"–never tasted a bite as wonderful as the Hedge orphans' first bite of the apple from the tree their parents had hybridized with horseradish. The apple was not as bitter as the Hedge orphans would have guessed, and the horseradish gave the juice of the apple a slight, sharp edge, like the air on a winter morning. But of course, the biggest appeal of the apple offered by the Incredibly Deadly Viper was its immediate effect on the deadly fungus growing inside them. From the moment the Hedge teeth bit down on the apple–first Tails', and then Amy's, and then Sonic's the stalks and caps of the Medusoid Mycelium began to shrink, and within moments all traces of the dreaded mushroom had withered away, and the children could breathe clearly and easily. Hugging one another in relief, the Hedges found themselves laughing, which is a common reaction among people who have narrowly escaped death, and the snake seemed to be laughing, too, although perhaps it was just appreciating the youngest Hedge scratching behind its tiny, hooded ears.

"We should each have another apple," Tails said, standing up, "to make

sure we've consumed enough horseradish."

"And we should collect enough apples for all of the islanders," Amy said. "They must be just as desperate as we were."

"Stockpot," Sonic said, and walked to the rack of pots on the ceiling, where the snake helped him take down an enormous metal pot that could hold a great number of apples and in fact had been used to make an enormous vat of applesauce a number of years previously.

"You two start picking apples," Tails said, walking to the periscope. "I want to check on Vanilla Snicket. The flooding of the coastal shelf must have begun by now, and she must be terrified."

"I hope she avoided the Medusoid Mycelium," Amy said. "I hate to think of what that would do to her child."

"Phearst," Sonic said, which meant something like, "We should rescue her promptly."

"The islanders are in worse shape than Vanilla," Amy said. "We should go to Mighty's tent first, and then go rescue Vanilla."

Tails peered through the periscope and frowned. "We shouldn't go to Mighty 's tent," she said. "We need to fill that stockpot with apples and get to the coastal shelf as quickly as we can."

"What do you mean?" Amy said.

"They're leaving," Tails said, and I'm sorry to say it was true. Through the periscope, the eldest Hedge could see the shape of the outrigger and the figures of its poisoned passengers, who were pushing it along the coastal shelf toward the library raft where Vanilla Snicket still lay. The three children each peered through the periscope, and then looked at one another. They knew they should be hurrying, but for a moment none of the Hedges could move, as if they were unwilling to travel any farther in their sad history, or see one more part of their story come to

an end.

If you have read this far in the chronicle of the Hedge orphans–and I certainly hope you have not–then you know we have reached the thirteenth chapter of the thirteenth volume in this sad history, and so you know the end is near, even though this chapter is so lengthy that you might never reach the end of it. But perhaps you do not yet know what the end really means. "The end" is a phrase which refers to the completion of a story, or the final moment of some accomplishment, such as a secret errand, or a great deal of research, and indeed this thirteenth volume marks the completion of my investigation into the Hedge case, which required much research, a great many secret errands, and the accomplishments of a number of my comrades, from a trolley driver to a botanical hybridization expert, with many, many typewriter repairpeople in between. But it cannot be said that The Endcontains the end of the Hedges' story, any more than The Bad Beginning contained its beginning. The children's story began long before that terrible day on Briny Beach, but there would have to be another volume to chronicle when the Hedges were born, and when their parents married, and who was playing the violin in the candlelit restaurant when the Hedge parents first laid eyes on one another, and what was hidden inside that violin, and the childhood of the man who orphaned the girl who put it there, and even then it could not be said that the Hedges' story had not begun, because you would still need to know about a certain tea party held in a penthouse suite, and the baker who made the scones served at the tea party, and the baker's assistant who smuggled the secret ingredient into the scone batter through a very narrow drainpipe, and how a crafty volunteer created the illusion of a fire in the kitchen simply by wearing a certain dress and

jumping around, and even then the beginning of the story would be as far away as the shipwreck that left the Hedge parents as castaways on the coastal shelf is far away from the outrigger on which the islanders would depart. One could say, in fact, that no story really has a beginning, and that no story really has an end, as all of the world's stories are as jumbled as the items in the arboretum, with their details and secrets all heaped together so that the whole story, from beginning to end, depends on how you look at it. We might even say that the world is always in medias resa Latin phrase which means "in the midst of things" or "in the middle of a narrative"–and that it's impossible to solve any mystery, or find the root of any trouble, and so The End is really the middle of the story, as many people in this history will live long past the close of Chapter Thirteen, or even the beginning of the story, as a new child arrives in the world at the chapter's close. But one cannot sit in the midst of things forever. Eventually one must face that the end is near, and the end of The End is quite near indeed, so if I were you I would not read the end of The End, as it contains the end of a notorious villain but also the end of a brave and noble sibling, and the end of the colonists' stay on the island, as they sail off the end of the coastal shelf. The end of The End contains all these ends, and that does not depend on how you look at it, so it might be best for you to stop looking at The End before the end of The End arrives, and to stop reading The End before you read the end, as the stories that end in The End that began in The Bad Beginning are beginning to end now.

The Hedges hurriedly filled their stockpot with apples and ran to the coastal shelf, hurrying over the brae as quickly as they could. It was past lunchtime, and the waters of the sea were already flooding the shelf, so the water was much deeper than it had been since the children's arrival.

Tails and Amy had to hold the stockpot high in the air, and Sonic and the Incredibly Deadly Viper climbed up on the elder Hedges' shoulders to ride along with the bitter apples. The children could see Vanilla Snicket on the horizon, still lying on the library raft as the waters rose to soak the first few layers of books, and alongside the strange cube was the outrigger. As they drew closer, they saw that the islanders had stopped pushing the boat and were climbing aboard, pausing from time to time to cough, while at the head of the outrigger was the figure of Mighty , seated in his clay chair, gazing at his poisoned colonists and watching the children approach.

"Stop!" Tails cried, when they were close enough to be heard. "We've discovered a way to dilute the poison!"

"Hedges!" came the faint cry of Vanilla high atop the library raft. "Thank goodness you're here! I think I'm going into labor!"

As I'm sure you know, "labor" is the term for the process by which a woman gives birth, and it's a Herculean task, a phrase which here means "something you would rather not do on a library raft floating on a flooding coastal shelf." Sonic could see, from her stockpot perch, Vanilla holding her belly and giving the youngest Hedge a painful grimace. "We'll help you," Tails promised, "but we need to get these apples to the islanders."

"They won't take them!" Vanilla said. "I tried to tell them how the poison could be diluted, but they insist on leaving!"

"No one's forcing them," said Mighty calmly. "I merely suggested that the island was no longer a safe place, and that we should set sail for another one."

"You and the Hedges are the ones who got us into this mess," came the drowsy voice of Mr. Ashura , thick with fungus and coconut cordial, "but Mighty is going to get us out."

"This island used to be a safe place," said Professor Finitevus , "far from the treachery of the world. But since you've arrived it's become dangerous and complicated."

"That's not our fault," Amy said, walking closer and closer to the outrigger as the water continued to rise. "You can't live far from the treachery of the world, because eventually the treachery will wash up on your shores."

"Exactly," said Ray, who yawned. "You washed up and spoiled the island forever."

"So we're leaving it to you," said Li Moon, who coughed violently. "You can have this dangerous place. We're going to sail to safety."

"Safe here!" Sonic cried, holding up an apple.

"You've poisoned us enough," said Perici, and the islanders wheezed in agreement "We don't want to hear any more of your treacherous ideas."

"But you were ready to mutiny," Tails said. "You didn't want to take Mighty 's suggestions."

"That was before the Medusoid Mycelium arrived," Boomer said hoarsely. "He's been here the longest, so he knows how to keep us safe. At his suggestion, we all drank quite a bit of cordial while he figured out the root of the trouble." She paused to catch her breath as the sinister fungus continued to grow. "And the root of the trouble, Hedges, is you."

By now the children had reached the outrigger, and they looked up at Mighty , who raised his eyebrows and stared back at the frantic Hedges. "Why are you doing this?" Amy asked the facilitator. "You know we're not the root of the problem."

"In medias res!" Sonic cried.

"Sonic's right," Tails said. "The Medusoid Mycelium was around before

we were born, and our parents prepared for its arrival by adding horseradish to the roots of the apple tree."

"If they don't eat these bitter apples," Amy pleaded, "they'll come to a bitter end. Tell the islanders the whole story, Mighty , so they can save themselves."

"The whole story?" Mighty said, and leaned down from his chair so he could talk to the Hedges without the others hearing. "If I told the islanders the whole story, I wouldn't be keeping them safe from the world's terrible secrets. They almost learned the whole story this morning, and began to mutiny over breakfast. If they knew all these island's secrets there'd be a schism in no time at all."

"Better a schism than a death," Tails said.

Mighty shook his head, and fingered the wild strands of his woolly beard. "No one is going to die," he said. "This outrigger can take us to a beach near Lousy Lane, where we can travel to a horseradish factory." "You don't have time for such a long voyage," Amy said.

"I think we do," Mighty said. "Even without a compass, I think I can get us to a safe place."

"You need a moral compass," Tails said. "The spores of the Medusoid Mycelium can kill within the hour. The entire colony could be poisoned, and even if you make it to shore, the fungus could spread to anyone you meet. You're not keeping anyone safe. You're endangering the whole world, just to keep a few of your secrets. That's not parenting! That's horrid and wrong!"

"I guess it depends on how you look at it," Mighty said. "Good-bye, Hedges." He sat up straight and called out to the wheezing islanders. "I suggest you start rowing," he said, and the colonists reached their arms into the water and began to paddle the outrigger away from the

children. The Hedges hung on to the side of the boat, and called to the islander who had first found them on the coastal shelf. "Cosmo!" Sonic cried. "Take apple!" "Don't succumb to peer pressure," Tails begged.

Cosmo turned to face the children, and the siblings could see she was terribly frightened. Amy quickly grabbed an apple from the stockpot, and the young girl leaned out of the boat to touch his hand.

"I'm sorry to leave you behind, Hedges," she said, "but I must go with my family. I've already lost my father, and I couldn't stand to lose anyone else."

"But your father–" Amy started to say, but Mrs. Caliban gave him a terrible look and pulled her daughter away from the edge of the outrigger.

"Don't rock the boat," she said. "Come here and drink your cordial."

"Your mother is right, Cosmo," Mighty said firmly. "You should respect your parent's wishes. It's more than the Hedges ever did."

"We are respecting our parents' wishes," Tails said, hoisting the apples as high as she could. "They didn't want to shelter us from the world's treacheries. They wanted us to survive them."

Mighty put his hand on the stockpot of apples. "What do your parents know," he asked, "about surviving?" and with one firm, cruel gesture the old orphan pushed against the stockpot, and the outrigger moved out of the children's grasp. Tails and Amy tried to take another step closer to the islanders, but the water had risen too far, and the Hedge feet slipped off the surface of the coastal shelf, and the siblings found themselves swimming. The stockpot tipped, and Sonic gave a small shriek and climbed down to Tails' shoulders as several apples from the pot dropped into the water with a splash. At the sound of the splash, the Hedges remembered the apple core that Mighty had dropped, and

realized why the facilitator was so calm in the face of the deadly fungus, and why his voice was the only one of the islanders' that wasn't clogged with stalks and caps.

"We have to go after them," Tails said. "We may be their only chance!"

"We can't go after them," Amy said, still holding the apple. "We have to help Vanilla."

"Split up," Sonic said, staring after the departing outrigger.

Amy shook her head. "All of us need to stay if we're going to help Kit give birth." She gazed at the islanders and listened to the wheezing and coughing coming from the boat fashioned from wild grasses and the limbs of trees. "They made their decision," she said finally.

"Kontiki," Sonic said. he meant something along the lines of, "There's no way they'll survive the journey," but the youngest Hedge was wrong. There was a way. There was a way to bring the islanders a single apple that they could share, each taking a bite of the precious bitter fruit that might tide them over–the phrase "tide them over," as you probably know, means "help deal with a difficult situation"until they reached someplace or someone who could help them, just as the three Hedges shared an apple in the secret space where their parents had enabled them to survive one of the most deadly unfortunate events ever to wash up on the island's shores. Whoever brought the apple to the islanders, of course, would need to swim very stealthily to the outrigger, and it would help if they were quite small and slender, so they might escape the watchful eye of the outrigger's facilitator. The Hedges would not notice the disappearance of the Incredibly Deadly Viper for quite some time, as they would be focused on helping Vanilla, and so they could never say for sure what happened to the snake, and my research into the reptile's story is incomplete, so I do not know what other chapters occurred in its history, as Ink, as some prefer to call the snake, slithered from one place to the next, sometimes taking shelter from the treachery of the world and sometimes committing treacherous acts of its own–a history not unlike that of the Hedge orphans, which some

have called little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Unless you have investigated the islanders' case yourself, there is no way of knowing what happened to them as they sailed away from the colony that had been their home. But there was a way they could have survived their journey, a way that may seem fantastic, but is no less fantastic than three children helping a woman give birth. The Hedges hurried to the library raft, and lifted Sonic and the stockpot to the top of the raft where Vanilla lay, so the youngest Hedge could hold the wheezing woman's gloved hand and the bitter apples could dilute the poison inside her as Tails and Amy pushed the raft back toward shore. "Have an apple," Sonic offered, but Vanilla shook her head.

"I can't," she said.

"But you've been poisoned," Tails said. "You must have caught a spore or two from the islanders as they floated by."

"The apples will harm the baby," Vanilla said. "There's something in the hybrid that's bad for people who haven't been born yet. That's why Rosemary never tasted one of your mothers own bitter apples. She was pregnant with you, Tails." One of Vanilla's gloved hands drifted down over the top of the raft and patted the hair of the eldest Hedge. "I hope I'm half as good a mother as yours was, Tails," she said.

"You will be," Amy said.

"I don't know," Vanilla said. "I was supposed to help you children on that day when you finally reached Briny Beach. I wanted nothing more than to take you away in my taxi to someplace safe. Instead, I threw you into a world of treachery at the Hotel Denouement. And I wanted nothing more than to reunite you with your friends the Quagmires. Instead, I left them behind." She uttered a wheezy sigh, and fell silent.

Tails continued to guide the raft toward the island, and noticed for the

first time that her hands were pushing against the spine of a book whose

title he recognized from the library Aunt Sticks kept underneath her bed–Ivan Lachrymose–Lake Explorer–while his sister was pushing against Mushroom Minutiae, a book that had been part of Fiona's mycological library. "What happened?" Amy asked, trying to imagine what strange events would have brought these books to these shores.

"I failed you," Vanilla said sadly, and coughed. "Shadow managed to reach the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, just as I hoped he would, and helped his siblings and Jet catch the treacherous eagles in an enormous net, while I met Captain Charmy Widdershins and his stepchildren."

"Fernald and Fiona?" Tails said, referring to the hook-handed man who had once worked for Count Eggman, and the young woman who had broken his heart. "But they betrayed him–and us."

"The captain had forgiven the failures of those he had loved," Vanilla said, "as I hope you will forgive mine, Hedges. We made a desperate attempt to repair the Queequeg and reach the Quagmires as their aerial battle continued, and arrived just in time to see the balloons of the

self-sustaining hot air mobile home pop under the cruel beaks of the escaping eagles. They tumbled down to the surface of the sea, and crashed into the Queequeg. In moments we were all castaways, treading water in the midst of all the items that survived the wreck." She was silent for a moment. "Fiona was so desperate to reach you, Tails," she said. "She wanted you to forgive her as well."

"Did she–" Tails could not bear to finish his question. "I mean, what happened next?" "I don't know," Vanilla admitted. "From the depths of the sea a mysterious figute approached–almost like a question mark, rising out of the water."

"We saw that on a radar screen," Tails remembered. "Captain Charmy Widdershins refused to tell us what it was."

"My brother used to call it 'The Great Unknown,'" Vanilla said, clasping her belly as the baby kicked violently. "I was terrified, Hedges. Quickly I fashioned a Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus, as I'd been trained to do." "'Vaporetto'?" Sonic asked.

"It's an Italian term for 'boat,'" Vanilla said. "It was one of many Italian phrases Knuckles taught me. A Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus is a way of saving yourself and your favorite things at the same time. I gathered all the books in reach that I enjoyed, tossing the boring ones into the sea, but everyone else wanted to take their chances with the great unknown. I begged the others to climb aboard as the question mark approached, but only Ink managed to reach me. The others ... " Her voice trailed off, and for a moment Vanilla did nothing but wheeze. "In an instant they were gone–either swallowed up or rescued by that mysterious thing."

"You don't know what happened to them?" Amy asked.

Vanilla shook her head. "All I heard," she said, "was one of the Quagmires calling Amy's name."

Sonic looked into the face of the distraught woman. "Shadow," the youngest Hedge could not help asking "or Manic?"

"I don't know," Vanilla said again. "I'm sorry, Hedges. I failed you. You succeeded in your noble errands at the Hotel Denouement, and saved Dewey and the others, but I don't know if we'll ever see the Quagmires and their companions again. I hope you will forgive my failures, and when I see Dewey again I hope he will forgive me, too."

The Hedge orphans looked at one another sadly, realizing it was time at last to tell Vanilla Snicket the whole story, as she had told them. "We'll forgive your failures," Tails said, "if you'll forgive ours."

"We failed you, too," Amy said. "We had to burn down the Hotel Denouement, and we don't know if anyone escaped to safety."

Sonic gripped Vanilla's hand in his. "And Dewey is dead," he said, and everyone burst into tears. There is a kind of crying I hope you have not experienced, and it's not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don't know and even the people you don't want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face. Sonic held Vanilla, and Tails held Amy, and for a minute the four castaways did nothing but weep, letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history. Vanilla and the children let their sadness join the sadness of the world, and cried for all of the people who were lost to them. They cried for Dewey Denouement, and for the Quagmire triplets, and for all of their companions and guardians, friends and associates, and for all of the failures they could forgive and all of the treacheries they could endure.

They cried for the world, and most of all, of course, the Hedge orphans cried for their parents, who they knew, finally, they would never see again. Even though Vanilla Snicket had not brought news of their parents, her story of the Great Unknown made them see at last that the people who had written all those chapters in A Series of Unfortunate Events were gone forever into the great unknown, and that Tails, Amy, and Sonic would be orphans forever, too.

"Stop," Vanilla said finally, through her fading tears. "Stop pushing the raft. I cannot go on." "We have to go on," Tails said.

"We're almost at the beach," Amy said. "The shelf is flooding," Sonic said.

"Let it flood," Vanilla said. "I can't do it, Hedges. I've lost too many

people–my parents, my true love, and my brothers."

At the mention of Vanilla 's brothers, Tails thought to reach into his pocket, and he retrieved the ornate ring, emblazoned with the initial R. "Sometimes the things you've lost can be found again in unexpected places," she said, and held the ring up for Vanilla to see. The distraught woman removed her gloves, and held the ring in her bare and trembling hand.

"This isn't mine," she said. "It belonged to your mother's."

"Before it belonged to our mother," Amy said, "it belonged to you."

"Its history began before we were born," Vanilla said, "and it should continue after we die. Give it to my child, Hedges. Let my child be part of my history, even if the baby is an orphan, and all alone in the world."

"The baby will not be alone," Tails said fiercely. "If you die, Vanilla, we will raise this child as our own."

"I could not ask for better," Vanilla said quietly. "Name the baby after one of your parents, Hedges. The custom of my family is to name a baby for someone who has died."

"Ours too," Sonic said, remembering something his father had told him when he had inquired about his own name.

"Our families have always been close," Kit said, "even if we had to stay apart from one another. Now, finally, we are all together, as if we are one family."

"Then let us help you," Sonic said, and with a weepy, wheezy nod, Vanilla Snicket let the Hedges push her Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus off the coastal shelf and onto the shores of the island, where eventually everything arrives, just as the outrigger disappeared on the horizon. The children gazed at the islanders for the last time–at least as far as I know–and then at the cube of books, and tried to imagine how the

injured, pregnant, and distraught woman could get to a safe place to birth a child.

"Can you lower yourself down?" Tails asked.

Vanilla shook her head. "It hurts," she said, her voice thick with the poisonous fungus.

"We can carry her," Amy said, but Vanilla shook her head again.

"I'm too heavy," she said weakly. "I could fall from your grasp and hurt the baby."

"We can invent a way to get you to the shore," Tails said.

"Yes," Amy said. "We'll just run to the arboretum to find what we need." "No time," Sonic said, and Vanilla nodded in agreement.

"The baby's coming quickly," she said. "Find someone to help you." "We're alone," Tails said, but then she and her siblings gazed out at the

beach where the raft had arrived, and the Hedges saw, crawling out of Mighty 's tent, the one person for whom they had not shed a tear.

Sonic slid down to the sand, bringing the stockpot with her, and the three children hurried up the slope to the struggling figure of Count Eggman. "Hello, orphans," he said, his voice even wheezier and rougher from the spreading poison of the Medusoid Mycelium. Eudora dress had fallen away from his skinny body, and he was crawling on the sand in his regular clothes, with one hand holding a seashell of cordial and the other clutching at his chest. "Are you here to bow before the king of

Eggman-Land?"

"We don't have time for your nonsense," Tails said. "We need your help."

Count Eggman's eyebrow raised, and he gave the children an astonished glare. "You need my help?" he asked. "What happened to all those island fools?"

"They abandoned us," Amy said.

Eggman wheezed horridly, and it took the siblings a moment to realize he was laughing.

"How do you like them apples?" he sputtered, using an expression which means "I find this situation quite remarkable."

"We'll give you apples," Sonic said, gesturing to the stockpot, "if you help."

"I don't want fruit," Eggman snarled, and tried to sit up, his hand still clutching his chest. "I want the fortune your parents left behind."

"The fortune isn't here," Tails said. "None of us may ever see a penny of that money."

"Even if it were here," Amy said, "you might not live to enjoy it." "Mcguffin," Sonic said, which meant "Your scheming means nothing in this place."

Count Eggman raised the seashell to his lips, and the Hedges could see that he was trembling. "Then maybe I'll just stay here," he said hoarsely. "I've lost too much to go on–my parents, my true love, my henchfolk, an enormous amount of money I didn't earn, even the boat with my name on it."

The three children looked at one another, remembering their time on that boat and recalling that they had considered throwing him overboard. If Eggman had drowned in the sea, the Medusoid Mycelium might never have threatened the island, although the deadly fungus eventually would have washed up on its shores, and if the villain were dead then there would be no one on the beach who might help Vanilla Snicket and her child.

Tails knelt on the sand, and grabbed the villain's shoulders with both hands. "We have to go on," he said. "Do one good thing in your life, Eggman."

"I've done lots of good things in my life," he snarled. "I once took in

three orphans, and I've been considered for several prestigious theatrical awards."

Amy knelt down beside her brother, and stared into the villain's shiny eyes. "You're the one who made us orphans in the first place," he said, uttering out loud for the first time a secret all three Hedges had kept in their hearts for almost as long as they could remember. Eggman closed his eyes for a moment, grimacing in pain, and then stared slowly at each of the three children in turn.

"Is that what you think?" he said finally. "We know it," Sonic said. "You don't know anything," Count Eggman said. "You three children are the same as when I first laid eyes on you. You think you can triumph in this world with nothing more than a keen mind, a pile of books, and the occasional gourmet meal." He poured one last gulp of cordial into his poisoned mouth before throwing the seashell into the sand. "You're just like your parents," he said, and from the shore the children heard Vanilla Snicket moan.

"You have to help Vanilla," Tails said. "The baby is arriving."

" Vanilla!?" Count Eggman asked, and in one swift gesture he grabbed an apple from the stockpot and took a savage bite. He chewed, wincing in pain, and the Hedges listened as his wheezing settled and the poisonous fungus was diluted by their parents' invention. He took another bite, and another, and then, with a horrible groan, the villain rose to his feet, and the children saw that his chest was soaked with blood.

"You're hurt," Amy said.

"I've been hurt before," Count Eggman said, and he staggered down the slope and waded into the waters of the flooded coastal shelf. In one smooth gesture he lifted Kit from the raft and carried her onto the shores of the island. The distraught woman's eyes were closed, and as the

Hedges hurried down to her they were not sure she was alive until Eggman laid her carefully down on the white sands of the beach, and the children saw her chest heaving with breath. The villain stared at Vanilla for one long moment, and then he leaned down and did a strange thing. As the Hedge orphans looked on, Count Eggman gave Vanilla Snicket a gentle kiss on her trembling mouth.

"Yuck," said Sonic, as Vanilla's eyes fluttered open.

"I told you," Count Eggman said weakly. "I told you I'd do that one last time."

"You're a wicked man," Vanilla said coldly. "Do you think one kind act will make me forgive you for your failings?"

The villain stumbled a few steps away, and then sat down on the sand and uttered a deep sigh. "I haven't apologized," he said, looking first at the pregnant woman and then at the Hedges. Vanilla reached out and touched the man's ankle, right on the tattoo of an eye that had haunted the children since they had first seen it. Tails, Amy, and Sonic looked at the tattoo, remembering all of the times it had been disguised and all the times it had been revealed, and they thought of all the other places they had seen it, for if you looked carefully, the drawing of an eye also spelled out the initials V.F.D., and as the children had investigated the Volunteer Fire Department, first trying to decode the organization's sinister mysteries and then trying to participate in its noble errands, it seemed that these eyes were watching them, though whether the eyes were noble or treacherous, good or evil, seemed even now to be a mystery. The whole story of these eyes, it seemed, might always be hidden from the children, kept in darkness along with all the other eyes watching all the other orphans every day and every night.

"'The night has a thousand eyes,'" Vanilla said hoarsely, and lifted her head

to face the villain. The Hedges could tell by her voice that she was reciting the words of someone else. '"And the day but one; yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one: yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.'"

Count Eggman gave Vanilla a faint smile. "You're not the only one who can recite the words of our associates," he said, and then gazed out at the sea. The afternoon was nearly over, and soon the island would be covered in darkness. '"Man hands on misery to man,'" the villain said. "'It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can–'" Here he coughed, a ghastly sound, and his hands clutched his chest. "'And don't have any kids yourself,'" he finished, and uttered a short, sharp laugh. Then the villain's story came to an end. Eggman lay back on the sand, far from the treachery of the world, and the children stood on the beach and stared into his face. His eyes shone brightly, and his mouth opened as if he wanted to tell them something, but the Hedge orphans never heard Count Eggman say another word.

Vanilla gave a cry of pain, thick with poisonous fungus, and clutched her heaving belly, and the Hedges hurried to help her. They did not even notice when Count Eggman closed his eyes for the last time, and perhaps this is a good time for you to close your eyes, too, not just to avoid reading the end of the Hedges' story, but to imagine the beginning of another. It's likely your own eyes were closed when you were born, so that you left the safe place of your mother's womb–or, if you are a seahorse, your father's yolk sac–and joined the treachery of the world without seeing exactly where you were going. You did not yet know the people who were helping you make your way here, or the people who would shelter you as your life began, when you were even

smaller and more delicate and demanding than you are now. It seems strange that you would do such a thing, and leave yourself in the care of strangers for so long, only gradually opening your eyes to see what all the fuss was about, and yet this is the way nearly everyone comes into the world. Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the crimes, follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women. In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words–or perhaps someone else's–before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end. And in this way, with the journey taken by Vanilla Snicket's baby, we reach the end of A Series of Unfortunate Events as well. For some time, Vanilla Snicket's labor was very difficult, and it seemed to the children that things were moving in an aberrant–the word "aberrant" here means "very, very wrong, and causing much grief"–direction. But finally, into the world came a baby girl, just as, I'm very, very sorry to say, her mother, and my sister, slipped away from the world after a long night of suffering–but also a night of joy, as the birth of a baby is always good news, no matter how much bad news the baby will hear later. The sun rose over the coastal shelf, which would not flood again for another year, and the Hedge orphans held the baby on the shore and watched as her eyes opened for the first time. Vanilla Snicket's daughter squinted at the sunrise, and tried to imagine where in the world she was, and of course as she wondered this she began to cry. The girl, named after the Hedges' mother, howled and howled, and as her series of unfortunate events began, this history of the Hedge orphans ended.

This is not to say, of course, that the Hedge orphans died that day. They were far too busy. Although they were still children, the Hedges were parents now, and there was quite a lot to do. Tails designed and built the equipment necessary for raising an infant, using the library of detritus stored in the shade of the apple tree. Amy searched the enormous bookcase for information on child care, and kept careful track of the baby's progress. Sonic herded and milked the wild sheep, to provide nourishment for the baby, and used the whisk Cosmo had given him to make soft foods as the baby's teeth came in. And all three Hedges planted seeds from the bitter apples all over the island, to chase away any traces of the Medusoid Mycelium–even though they remembered it grew best in small, enclosed spaces–so the deadly fungus had no chance to harm the child and so the island would remain as safe as it was on the day they arrived. These chores took all day, and at night, while the baby was learning to sleep, the Hedges would sit together in the two large reading chairs and take turns reading out loud from the book their parents had left behind, and sometimes they would flip to the back of the book, and add a few lines to the history themselves. While reading and writing, the siblings found many answers for which they had been looking, although each answer, of course, only brought forth another mystery, as there were many details of the Hedges' lives that seemed like a strange, unreadable shape of some great unknown. But this did not concern them as much as you might think. One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of one's history, and no matter how much one reads, the whole story can never be told. But it was enough. Reading their parents' words was, under the circumstances, the best for which the Hedge orphans could hope.

As the night grew later they would drop off to sleep, just as their parents did, in the chairs in the secret space beneath the roots of the bitter apple tree, in the arboretum on an island far, far from the treachery of the world. Several hours later, of course, the baby would wake up and fill the space with confused and hungry cries. The Hedges took turns, and while the other two children slept, one Hedge would carry the baby, in a sling Tails had designed, out of the arboretum and up to the top of the brae, where they would sit, infant and parent, and have breakfast while staring at the sea. Sometimes they would visit Vanilla Snicket's grave, where they would lay a few wildflowers, or the grave of Count Eggman, where they would merely stand silent for a few moments. In many ways, the lives of the Hedge orphans that year is not unlike my own, now that I have concluded my investigation. Like Tails, like Amy, and like Sonic, I visit certain graves, and often spend my mornings standing on a brae, staring out at the same sea. It's not the whole story, of course, but it's enough. Under the circumstances, it's the best for which you can hope.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 _For Cream_

 _We are like boats passing in the night particularly you._

R

 **Fourteen**

The last entry in the Hedge parents' handwriting in A Series of Unfortunate Events reads as follows:

 _As we suspected, we are to be castaways once more. The others believe that the island should stay far from the treachery of the world, and so this safe place is too dangerous for us. We will leave by a boat B has built and named after me. I am heartbroken, but I have been heartbroken before, and this might be the best for which I can hope. We cannot truly shelter our children, here or anywhere else, and so it might be best for us and for the baby to immerse ourselves in the world. Rosemary trust's us with Tails and we shall treat him as one of our own children. By the way, if we have a child if it's a girl we will name her Amy, and if it's a boy we will name him Lemony._

The Hedge orphans read this entry one evening after a supper of seaweed salad, crab cakes, and roast lamb, and when Tails finished reading all three children laughed. Even Vanilla's baby, a beautiful peach rabbit, sitting on Sonic's knee, uttered a happy shriek.

"Lemony?" Amy repeated. "They would have named me Lemony?

Where did they get that idea?"

"From someone who died, presumably," Tails said. "Remember the family custom?"

"Lemony Hedge," Sonic tried, and the baby laughed again. She was nearly a year old, and looked very much like her mother, if she was a rabbit, not a hedgehog.

"They never told us about a Lemony," Tails said, and ran his hair through his hands. he had been repairing the water filtration system all day and was quite tired.

Amy poured her brothers more coconut milk, which the children preferred

to drink fresh. "They didn't tell us a lot of things," he said. "What do you think it means, 'I've been heartbroken before'?"

"You know what 'heartbroken' means," Sonic said, and then nodded as the baby murmured "Abelard." The youngest Hedge was best at deciphering the infant's somewhat unusual way of speaking.

"I think it means we should leave," Tails said. "Leave the island?" Amy said. "And go where?"

"Anywhere," Tails said. "We can't stay here forever. There's everything

we might need, but it's not right to be so far from the world." "And its treachery?" Sonic asked.

"You'd think we would have had enough treachery for a lifetime," Amy said, "but there's more to life than safety."

"Our parents left," Tails said. "Maybe we should honor their wishes." "Chekrio?" the baby said, and the Hedges considered her for a

moment. Vanilla's daughter was growing up very quickly, and she eagerly explored the island at every opportunity. All three siblings had to keep a close eye on her, particularly in the arboretum, which was still heaping with detritus even after a year of cataloging. Many of the items in the enormous library were dangerous for babies, of course, but the infant had never had a serious injury. The baby had heard about danger, too,

mostly from the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind from which the Hedges read out loud each evening, although they had not told the infant the whole story. She did not know all of the Hedges' secrets, and indeed there were some she would never know. "We can't shelter her forever," Amy said.

"In any case, treachery will wash up on these shores."

"I'm surprised it hasn't already," Tails said. "Plenty of things have been shipwrecked here, but we haven't seen a single castaway."

"If we leave," Sonic asked, "what will we find?"

The Hedges fell silent. Because no castaways had arrived in the year, they had little news of the world, aside from a few scraps of newspaper that had survived a terrible storm. Judging from the articles, there were still villains loose in the world, although a few volunteers also appeared to have survived all of the troubles that had brought the children to the island. The articles, however, were from The Daily Punctilio, and so the children could not be sure they were accurate. For all they knew, the islanders had spread the Medusoid Mycelium, and the entire world might be poisoned. This, however, seemed unlikely, as the world, no matter how monstrously it may be threatened, has never been known to succumb entirely. The Hedges also thought of all the people they hoped to see again, although, sadly, this also seemed unlikely, though not impossible.

"We won't know until we get there," Tails said.

"Well, if we're leaving, we'd better hurry," Amy said. She stood up and walked to the bench, where the middle Hedge had fashioned a calendar she believed to be fairly accurate. "The coastal shelf will flood soon."

"We won't need much," Sonic said. "We have quite a bit of

nonperishable food."

"I've cataloged quite a bit of naval equipment," Tails said.

"I have some good maps," Amy said, "but we should also make room for some of our favorite detritus. I have some novels by P. G. Wodehouse I've been meaning to get to."

"Blueprints," Tails said thoughtfully. "and my miniature water filtration system"

"My whisk," Sonic said, looking at the item that Cosmo had smuggled him long ago, which had turned out to be a very handy utensil even after the baby had outgrown whisked foods.

"Cake!" shrieked the baby, and her guardians laughed.

"Do we take this?" Tails asked, holding up the book from which he had read out loud.

"I don't think so," Amy said. "Perhaps another castaway will arrive, and continue the history."

"In any case," Sonic said, "they'll have something to read."

"So we're really leaving," Tails said, and they really were. After a good night's sleep, the Hedges began to prepare for their voyage, and it was true they didn't need much. Sonic was able to pack a great deal of food that would be perfect for the journey, and even managed to sneak in a few luxuries, such as some roe he had harvested from local fishes, and a somewhat bitter but still tasty apple pie. Amy rolled several maps into a neat cylinder, and added a number of useful and entertaining items from the vast library. Tails added some blueprints, a miniature water filtration system of his own invention and equipment to the pile, and then selected a boat from all the shipwrecks that lay in the arboretum. The eldest Hedge had been surprised to find that the boat that looked best for the task was the one on which they had arrived, although by the time he was done repairing and readying it for the voyage he was not surprised after all. he repaired the hull of the boat,

and fastened new sails to the masts, and finally he looked at the nameplate reading COUNT EGGMAN, and with a small frown, he tore through the tape and removed it. As the children had noticed on their voyage to the island, there was another nameplate underneath, and when Tails read what it said, and called his siblings and adopted daughter over to see, yet another question about their lives

was answered, and yet another mystery had begun.

Finally, the day for departure arrived, and as the coastal shelf began to flood the Hedges carried the boat–or, as Uncle Knuckles might have put it, "vaporetto"–down to the beach and began to load all of their supplies. Tails, Amy, and Sonic gazed at the white sands of the beach, where new apple trees were beginning to grow. The children spent nearly all of their time in the arboretum, and so the side of the island where the colony had been now felt like the far side of the island, rather than where their parents had lived. "Are we ready to immerse ourselves in the world?" Tails asked.

"I just hope we don't immerse ourselves in the sea," Amy said, with a small smile.

"Me too," Sonic said, and smiled back at his brother.

"Where's the baby?" Tails said. "I want to make sure these life jackets I've designed will fit properly."

"She wanted to say good-bye to her mother," Sonic said. "She'll be along soon."

Sure enough, the tiny figure of Vanilla's daughter could be seen crawling over the brae, toward the children and their boat. The Hedges watched her approach, wondering what the next chapter in this infant's life would be, and indeed that is difficult to say. There are many who say that the Hedges rejoined V.F.D. and are engaged in brave errands to

this day, perhaps under different names to avoid being captured. There are others who say that they perished at sea, although rumors of one's death crop up so often, and are so often revealed to be untrue. So I know that they are still alive. But in any case, as my investigation is over, we have indeed reached the last chapter of the Hedges' story, even if the Hedges had not. The three children climbed into the boat, and waited for the baby to crawl to the water's edge, where she could pull herself into a standing position by clinging to the back of the boat. Soon the coastal shelf would flood, and the Hedge orphans would be on their way, immersing themselves in the world and leaving this story forever. Even the baby clutching the boat, whose story had just begun, would soon vanish from this chronicle, after uttering just a few words.

"Tai!" she cried, which was her way of greeting Tails. "Am! Son!"

"We wouldn't leave without you," Tails said, smiling down at the baby. "Come aboard," Amy said, talking to her as if she were an adult.

"You little thing," Sonic said, using a term of endearment she had made up herself.

The baby paused, and looked at the back of the boat, where the nameplate had been affixed. She had no way of knowing this, of course, but the nameplate had been nailed to the back of the boat by a person standing on the very spot she was standing–at least, as far as my research has shown. The infant was standing on a spot in someone else's story, during a moment of her own, but she was thinking neither of the story far in the past nor of her own, which stretched into the future like the open sea. She was gazing at the nameplate, and her forehead was wrinkled in concentration. Finally, she uttered a word. The Hedge orphans gasped when they heard it, but they could not say for sure whether she was reading the word out loud or merely stating her own

name, and indeed they never learned this. Perhaps this last word was the baby's first secret, joining the secrets the Hedges were keeping from the baby, and all the other secrets immersed in the world. Perhaps it's better not to know precisely what was meant by this word, as some things are better left in the great unknown. There are some words, of course, that are better left unsaid but not, I believe, the word uttered by my niece, a word which here means that the story is over. Cream.

Caption: The sea with a question mark drawing in the water _[picture deleted]_

LEMONY SNICKET is still at large.

Find him on the Web at .com.

BRETT HELQUIST was born in Ganado, Arizona, grew up in Orem, Utah, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Unfortunately, he gets out rarely during the daytime, and sleeps very little at night.

for more e-books, visit .com 


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